Work to improve a “dangerous” road junction regularly used by schoolchildren is being treated as a priority by Barnet Council.

Campaigners have been lobbying the council to improve pedestrian safety at the junction of High Road with Summers Lane and Granville Road in North Finchley

The junction’s traffic lights have no pedestrian crossing phase, meaning people must cross between flows of traffic – and sometimes that involves waiting on an island between lanes.

Samantha Shaikh, who lives in Park View Road, said her son Asher had had a near miss at the junction two years ago.

She said: “He was just finishing crossing when a car started moving and grazed him – it had gone too fast.

“It is a nightmare, that junction. They have no time to cross. There are so many kids crossing there, and it should be a real priority.”

The crossing was discussed at a meeting of the environment committee on Thursday (March 12). Work to improve it will be undertaken as part of the Local Implementation Plan, which is funded by Transport for London (TfL).

Speaking at the meeting, resident Lis Marmaris described the junction as “dangerous” and “an accident waiting to happen”.

She said: “The crossing is used daily by children going to Compton School, Friern Barnet School and Woodhouse College.

“Two years ago, I did a petition that raised over 300 signatures. I haven’t seen anything very visible happening at the crossing since then, and my daughter is getting to the age when she’ll probably be going to that school.

“What is being done as a matter of urgency to ensure the safety of children now?”

Geoff Mee, the council’s executive director of environment, said a lot of survey work had been carried out at the junction.

He explained work had to be undertaken alongside TfL, as it is “effectively their control system”.

Mr Mee added: “If we get it wrong, we will completely mess up the traffic flows. You have my assurance that this is a priority, we are taking it seriously in terms of the design, and we will be pursuing that to make sure we have got a design that is functional and that will pass the test of TfL.

“Once we’ve got that, we will get it funded.”

He assured Ms Marmaris if improvement work could not be funded in 2020-21, it would remain a candidate for the following financial year.

Labour environment spokesman Cllr Alan Schneiderman (Woodhouse) said two years seemed like a “really long time” to come up with a solution.

Mr Mee replied that he wanted to ensure there was a “pedestrian segment” to the junction – but that would increase the cycle of the traffic lights.

He added: “That has a knock-on effect on other junctions and the road network itself. That’s why it takes such a long time to get TfL to a position where they feel comfortable that we’re not going to be messing up their bus routes and creating tailbacks at junctions.

“The objective is to get to a position where we have a pedestrian element to the junction sequence, so we don’t have people trying to dash across between things.”