A county and district councillor has pledged to raise issues facing motorists using the A30 between Honiton and Monkton with Highways England.

Councillor Phil Twiss is holding a meeting with the authority in the future to discuss historic issues relating to the A30 from Honiton towards Exeter.

But he has now added the A-road to his hit-list after Cllr Caroline Kolek queried whether anything would be done to address the problems at last week’s town council meeting.

Speaking to the Herald, Cllr Twiss said: “I drive on the A30 between Honiton and Monkton on a daily basis, often on more than one occasion – and I share the frustrations of other road users.

“There are a number of times that traffic tails back towards Honiton as a result of vehicles trying to turn right in to the Starbucks site (formerly The Little Chef), causing problems with traffic.

“Often, vehicles are queuing back to the dual carriageway out of Honiton.

“As the use of the site is the same as the previous operator, no planning permission was needed to change from one to the other and no changes in how traffic enters and exits the site.

“Big increases in traffic volumes in recent years highlight the problem, particularly on weekends and peak holiday periods.

“Westbound traffic coming from Monkton to Honiton is also impacted by a slow journey from Southfields at Ilminster on a mostly single track carriageway other than at Marsh either turning in to the Starbucks site at Monkton, or letting in vehicles turning in to it for the other direction.”

Cllr Twiss will sit down with representatives at Highways England to see if anything can be done to improve matters.

He added that a longer-term solution for the stretch of road has been looked at several times.

Options included by-passing Monkton with a new road, outlined in 2014 as part of the Blackdown Hills Road Improvement Scheme.

Cllr Twiss said: “At this time it is a case of how this scheme might be financed when competing for a finite pot of National Highways money with other projects, where places like Stonehenge on the A303 are severely congested on a daily basis, and the A358 from Ilminster to the M5 at Taunton is also competing for funding to dual this piece of road.”