A former county councillor is pressing for safety measures at an accident blackspot where three people have died in the past month, writes Madeleine Pennell and David Horne.

John Banbury, of The Ley, Cadogan Park estate, Woodstock, is writing to Oxfordshire County Council asking for safety measures after his neighbours John Booker, 85, a former dentist, and his wife Jessie, 79, a retired nurse, were killed.

Their Rover car and a double-decker coach collided near Judds Garage on the A44 north of Woodstock last Thursday.

Just a month ago, off-duty fire officer Richard Bianchi was killed at the same spot. Mr Banbury, a former Woodstock councillor, said: "This is the third accident on this spot in a month.

"I am writing to the county council to see what can be done about it. There is already a 50mph speed limit on that stretch of road which is good.

"It is a bad junction. It is time the council looked at it again.

"I knew the couple quite well. They were very nice to get on with.

"My sentiments go out to their two daughters." Another neighbour, Ann Cooper, of Crecy Walk, said: "They were a very nice couple, members of Neighbourhood Watch and part of the community.

"They came here to retire and were very much enjoying it. They liked gardening and we used to talk about it.

"Mr Booker was a sprightly, intelligent, active man and the deaths have shaken a lot of the neighbours around here."

The couple, who retired to Woodstock ten years ago, leave two daughters who live outside Oxfordshire. Mr Booker used to work as a dentist at the former British Leyland car factory in Oxford. An inquest into their deaths is due to be opened and adjourned in Oxford today.

The couple died at the junction of the A44 Woodstock to Chipping Norton road with the B4437.

Traffic police believe the couple had pulled out from the Charlbury road and were turning right towards Woodstock when they were struck by the 68-seater coach, operated by Stagecoach, travelling towards Chipping Norton.

Anyone with any information should call Pc Andrew Mott on 01993 893920.

Story date: Monday 28 February

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.