STATION Road in Cross Hills has listed in a league table of the top 12 noisiest roads in Britain.

In a competition carried out by the UK Noise Association, the road, which carries 12,000 plus vehicles over numerous speed bumps everyday, is named as the eighth worst route.

The association launched the competition back in February asking people to nominate noisy roads and Station Road residents felt theirs fitted the bill.

In a report by the association it is described as "a rat-run for avoiding a level crossing which is closed, on average, 40 minutes out of 60 minutes with 12,000 plus vehicles per day. At the back of the homes, there is a freight depot. Within earshot of the gardens, there is the Aire Valley Trunk Road, Skipton Road and a roundabout with five exits".

A spokesman for the association said the roads nominated had to be routes where the amount of noise created annoyance.

He explained: "That is not necessarily the same as a road where the noise was loudest. We didn't use a noise meter. We didn't measure decibel levels. The level of annoyance, of intrusion into people's lives was what we were looking for.

"We also took into account of how long the noise lasted, the number of people affected by the noise and whether the road suffered from more than one annoying noise."

Top of the list was the A406 North Circular Road in London, with other contenders including the entrance to the Blackwall Tunnel and the M77 in Glasgow.

Station Road resident Graham Wild, who has lived there for 11 years, told the Herald he was not at all surprised by the listing.

He added that he had been at the forefront of a campaign more than four years ago to get speed bumps installed to slow the traffic.

He said that before they were installed North Yorkshire Police had recorded an average speed of 48mph on the road and top speeds of 65mph. They also recorded vehicle movements of between 10,000 and 12,000 a day.

"The speed has definitely come down since the introduction of the speed humps, but obviously now with the level crossing staying down for great lengths of time the traffic comes up Station Road to avoid it," Mr Wild added.

He added he felt sorry for those residents who lived at the top of Station Road where traffic queued to turn on to Cross Hills Main Street.

"I waited 17 minutes the other day to get from above the bridge to the top of the road, which is only a matter of about 200 yards."

Coun Philip Barrett, who used to live on Station Road, told the Herald that a quieter road surface had been laid more than 12 months ago, which he thought had alleviated some of the problem.

But he added that congestion was not helped by THE Highways Agency taking away one exit lane for Keighley-bound traffic at the roundabout at the bottom of Station Road.

Coun Barrett explained most of the traffic travelling down the road was heading towards Keighley and with one exit lane removed, vehicles were forced to queue for much longer.

Dave Wilson, North Yorkshire County Council's highways department's assistant divisional engineer, said the road had been covered with the low noise surfacing in order to negate any further problems.

He added that an "awful lot of traffic" used Station Road and that a large number of vehicles had to stand there with their engines running for long periods, which could cause disturbance.

Mr Wilson said he knew of no plans to deal with this volume of traffic.