FURIOUS road campaigners have hit out at millions of pounds of tax-payers' money being spent on a road only the Army will use.

Campaigners in west Wiltshire towns have been fighting unsuccessfully for years to make roads safer in the district.

Romy Wyeth, chairman of Codford Parish Council and a member of the A36 pressure group, said people in the Wylye Valley had been upset to hear of the new £12m road, which was opened on Salisbury Plain last week.

She said: "Considering the problems we have with the A36, the high death and accident rate, the fact we have a 13 or 14-mile stretch of road urgently needing upgrading, the question has been asked where it could have been better spent."

She said people realise Army roads are different, the money does not come from the normal highways budget, but feeling has still run high. "People are being killed and injured and the problem would only take a fraction of the money to solve," she said.

Winsley resident Michael Bowen said Wiltshire's roads budget is woefully inadequate with rural roads getting worse and worse.

He said: "The £12m would have been far better spent on behalf of motorists who have to daily use local roads denied the level of funding that would make them safer and surer to drive on."

People in Yarnbrook and West Ashton have been fighting for a road to to take heavy traffic away from the A350 for years and were spurred on by a horrific crash which killed three people in July.

Campaigner Pauline Hume said it was unfortunate the money was there to build Army roads but not public ones. She said: "There is money around and some people might think the priorities are skewed."

An Army spokesman said the cost of the new 25.6km road came from funds allocated to the Army's training areas. She said the road was necessary to get military vehicles off public roads and stop them churning up Salisbury Plain, where areas of wildlife and archeological interest need protecting.

"The army is incredibly proud of its stewardship of Salisbury Plain," she said.