A business leader has slammed proposed highway “improvements” on the busy A49 at Warrington which are set to cost an estimated £3 million.
The work involves removing a roundabout on Long Lane which is used by an average of 4,500 vehicles and hour and replacing it with a traffic light controlled junction.
Warrington Chamber of Commerce Chief Executive Colin Daniels (pictured right) said: “Yet again the Borough Council’s transport/traffic experts are proposing “improvements” to this junction by removing the traffic island and creating a junction controlled by traffic lights only.
“They claim ‘that this work will help to reduce congestion in the area’. I wonder where the evidence is for this claim? Or more likely is this a case of déjà vu especially when you remember the same claim for the removal of the traffic island at the Asda Junction on Cromwell Avenue which has left us with a problem that previously didn’t exist and
our transport/traffic experts were found wanting for failure to do the proper research.
“The Chamber of Commerce makes no apology for our campaign to reduce the cost to business and the residents of the worsening traffic congestion in the town where the only answer our transport and traffic experts have is more traffic lights, which in themselves it is universally acknowledged, cause both delays and congestion!”
The scheme aims to improve the A49 Winwick Road, A50 Long Lane and Hawley’s Lane junction.
It is expected site works will take about six months, although a date has not yet been fixed, but the earliest possible is July/August because of other works scheduled for the town centre during the summer.
Main features of the scheme are:
*Removal of the roundabout and replacement with a traffic light controlled crossroads junction providing for all vehicle and pedestrian movements.
*Widening of the A50 Long Lane approach.
*Creation of right turn lanes on both A49 Winwick Road approaches.
*Controlled shared pedestrian and cycle crossings on all four arms of the junction.
*Improve off-road pedestrian and cycle paths.
*Bus stops to be relocated to better serve passengers.
*Close of the access from the A49 Winwick Road to Densham Avenue.
*Enhanced landscaping around the junction
*Access to Floyd Drive to be left in/left out only from A49 Winwick Road southbound.
Widespread consultation was carried out during January.
Currently the junction is used by more than 4,500 vehicles during the morning peak hour and by more 4,300 during the evening peak hour. It also has to cope with significant numbers of pedestrians and cyclists.
Highways planners believe the scheme will perform better than the existing situation at peak periods.
4 Comments
Didn’t think that the council had any money, so how is it they can spend £3 million on this. And if they have got the money why don’t they spend it filling potholes and resurfacing existing roads, which are quite frankly a disgrace.
Cllr Daniels ought to try sitting on Long Lane trying to turn north on to A49- traffic lights currently are all over the place.. trucks going into Hawleys Lane block the junction etc,etc. I tneeds sorting and soon.
Warrington’s highway planners should be hung drawn and quartered for every solution they come up with makes things 10 times worse.
Get rid of 50 per cent of the traffic lights in this town and the traffic will move more freely!
The point is that with Westbrook & Calver Road in particular the planners belived the same woudl improve the situation and it made it worse. Westbrook is still beign moniotred some 2 years after it started and Calver Road only had the right hand turned banned permanently this year. Indeed red cones appeared recently to stop u-turns.
They simply cannot be trusted especially with £3m in the current climate. However that junction is a mare and needs something doing but that something shoudl be part of a borough wide plan. It is inevitable that changes here affect so much of other junctions that the full effect needs to be appreciated.