THE Highways Agency has been branded a “negligent waste of money” after another fatality on a notorious stretch of the A1.

Barbara Wlodarczyk, of The Street, Diddington, died when the VW Golf she was driving collided with an Audi A3 on Friday night.

Miss Wlodarczyk pulled out of the Diddington junction – just south of Buckden – heading on to the northbound carriageway when she collided with the Audi travelling south.

The 47-year-old died at the scene. The driver of the Audi suffered minor injuries.

Her death comes 18 months after 21-year-old Drew Graham died at the Bell Lane junction, at Southoe, and is the seventh death on the Southoe to Diddington stretch of road since 2002.

Retired police officer David Dodman, who lives in the Diddington, said the statistics only served to highlight that the road needed urgent attention.

“Barbara was a lovely girl,” he told The Hunts Post. “She’d been living in the village for seven or eight years and was always very pleasant – this is an utter tragedy.”

Mr Dodman, who lives on the northbound side of the A1 in Vicarage Lane, said it was difficult to access the road between 7am and 9am because of the volume and speed of traffic. He added that his son had almost died in a similar accident last year.

“The Highways Agency is a negligent waste of money,” he claimed. “They take no notice of the accidents that happen on this stretch of the A1. Maybe if there was a bus-load of people killed they’d think about doing something.”

Miss Wlodarczyk, who worked as a housekeeper in Great Gransden, was on her way to the Waterside Leisure Club at Buckden Marina to meet her partner Alistair Horsley.