A Skipton businessman is worried that a motorist will be killed if a mini-roundabout is not installed at the junction of Snaygill Industrial Estate and Keighley Road, Skipton.

Roger Newhouse, who has unit 13 on the estate, said workers could queue for up to 45 minutes trying to get onto Keighley Road.

"It is like Russian Roulette. It is all right going left but trying to get out right is impossible. You take your life in your hands," he said.

He added that some businesses had decided to close at 4.45pm so employees could get out quicker and more safely.

Mr Newhouse said he had approached North Yorkshire County Council's highways department and Craven District Council months ago to get a mini roundabout installed.

"It's about time we had some action. Or do we have to wait until someone is killed trying to get out onto Keighley Road," he said.

Mr Newhouse said Snaygill was Skipton's biggest industrial estate with about 30 companies and he thought it was being ignored.

He added that the council should also improve the estate's signage because there were no road names or a map. "It is like we have just been left on a backwater and no one is bothered," said Mr Newhouse.

Likewise, the manager at Guyson International, Tim Thompson, said: "There has been a battle with the highways department for the last five or six years according to my files."

He has almost 100 employees who leave the office at 5pm and are still waiting to get out of the car park at 5.15pm because of the cars queuing up the street to Keighley Road.

He thought the speed limit on Keighley Road should be reduced to give wagons a chance to pull out from the estate safely. Or he suggested that "peak time" traffic lights could be set up at the entrance to the estate.

Mr Guyson said he was annoyed that planning permission had recently been granted for another big unit on the estate and that planners had ignored his requests to create a link road between Snaygill and the Airedale Business Park. He said cars could then get out via the roundabout opposite the Tadpole Pub.

At last Thursday's Craven Area Committee, Coun Marcia Turner described the junction "as very busy". "It's getting really impossible now," she said, adding that there had already been an accident at the junction, resulting in the air ambulance having to be been called.

Traffic development and control manager at North Yorkshire County Council Graham Cressey said: "It is on the reserve list of schemes awaiting inclusion in the capital programme."

However, he added that the programme of work for this financial year had already been set.