DARLINGTON Council says it will send an engineer to examine the lights at a so-called ‘ghost’ junction on the outskirts of the town.

The junction at the intersection of the B6279 and an access road to the Lingfield Point business park is operated using a ‘loop detector’ mechanism.

This detects traffic and changes the lights to red so vehicles can exit onto the B6279, a route out of the town to the A66 and Teesside.

However some motorists using the B6279 road say they have been baffled by traffic light changes at the junction and forced to stop suddenly.

One motorist said: “The lights sometimes seem to change to red when there is no traffic waiting to exit onto the main road. I call it a ghost junction.

“They also change quite quickly and then having changed back to green can quickly change again to red.

“The speed limit on the main road is 40mph, but nonetheless vehicles leaving Darlington can pick up speed as they make their way onto the A66 and then be forced to stop quite suddenly.

“I wonder if there is a need for any lights at that junction at all. There is a pedestrian crossing nearby but that too is rarely used.”

A spokeswoman for the council said the junction was a secondary exit for the 2,500 employees at Lingfield Point.

She said the loop detector could be triggered by cars stopping on the exit road or parking up.

The spokeswoman said: “There have been no issues reported to us there, but we will send somebody out to take a look.”