A weekly newspaper has met with the government’s transport chief to discuss its campaign to ease traffic problems in the region after thousands of people signed petitions.

The Western Gazette has gathered more than 3,000 signatures since it launched its A303 Dual It! campaign in October, calling for the busy main road to be made into a dual carriageway in its entirety in a bid to boost the economy and improve road safety.

Now it has presented Transport Secretary Patrick McLoughlin with a dossier of the newspaper’s coverage on why the road needs to be dualled.

Mr McLoughlin was also shown a copy of the petition, which the paper is preparing to submit to government within weeks.

Representatives of the Western Gazette spoke to Transport Secretary Patrick McLoughlin about the A303 Dual It! campaign

Editor Emma Slee said the message of the campaign was that action needs to be taken to ensure the South West does not get left behind.

She said:  “The time has come for the government to invest in this part of the country. Our haulage firms, tourist attractions and local businesses are crying out for a chance to grow and we believe this needs government backing.

“An improved A303 will not only attract more people to the South West but it will help make the lives of local residents easier every day.

“We’ve listened to what our readers want and now we are acting on their behalf to get this road finally dualled.”

As part of its campaign, the paper has launched an interactive map of the A303, showing all the crashed which occurred along the Somerset stretch of the road between 2006 and 2011.

The data, from the Department of Transport, shows red dots for fatal crashes, yellow where a serious injury was reported and blue for less serious incidents.