Huntingdon Town Council has given its backing for a pedestrian crossing to be installed in the town, outside a community centre.

The authority has submitted an application to Cambridgeshire County Council for funds to help with the installation of a long campaigned-for crossing outside Saxongate Community Learning Centre.

“People who use Saxongate don’t have a safe place to cross and because the speed that some cars come round the corner from St Mary’s Street there needs to be a crossing so people can get across safely,” said town member Councillor Tom Sanderson.

The application has been submitted to the county council’s highway improvement scheme and, if successful, it could see the authority pay for the majority of the work and the town council to pay for the rest.

The proposal comes after VoiceAbility Cambridgeshire and the Speak Out Council – groups whose members use the centre - started a petition calling for a safer way for Saxongate users and town centre visitors to get across the road from the hub in Hartford Road to High Street.

The petition gained more than 600 signatures with many urging for traffic lights to be installed to allow for plenty of time to cross the busy road.

Despite the please from users for lights Cllr Sanderson believes that the crossing will only be a basic zebra crossing.

“Currently at the moment I don’t think that the new crossing will have lights, I think it will be a zebra crossing but that does all depend on what the county council and the town council think is better,” added Cllr Sanderson.

Members of the highway scheme will review the application on January 11 and will decide whether the proposal should be given the green light.

An appeal was launched in 2012 to get a crossing built which gained more than 1,000 signatures but further work was not carried out.