Highways Agency officials have revealed major plans to install signals at one of Shropshire’s busiest roundabouts to ease traffic flow.Anne Jones, the agency’s regional planning manager, told more than 60 residents at a public meeting held at the Guildhall last night that proposals were being investigated for traffic lights on four of the five exits of the Emstrey island on the A5 on the outskirts of Shrewsbury.
Highways officials insisted the project was still at the design stage, and it is expected the scheme will cost “substantially less” than £5 million.
The revelation was made as agency representatives addressed London Road residents about their concerns for the £60 million college co-location project.
Although the site for a shared college campus at London Road does not lie on a major trunk route, agency officials have filed an objection with borough council planners.
Bosses said the project could not be granted planning permission until substantial changes were made to the travel plan.
Mrs Jones said: “We already have works planned for the Emstrey roundabout to increase safety and traffic flow on the A5. That’s why we are concerned about the impact of the co-location project on the area, because we are investing lots of money into this. Unless the plans the college submits are robust we will continue to hold our objection.”
Robert Jaffier, agency network strategy manager, said: “We plan to deliver this project for substantially less than £5 million.”
The planning application for the co-location project was due to be discussed at a special meeting of Shrewsbury and Atcham Borough Council’s development control and environmental committee at the Music Hall on May 20. But it has been postponed until next month at the earliest to allow the agency to consider revised plans for the colleges.
A meeting is being held tonight chaired by MP Daniel Kawczynski at Shrewsbury Cricket Club at 6.30pm for residents to have their say on the plans.
By Peter Kitchen
9 Comments
As someone who has to cross the A5 at Emstrey on foot to get home from work, at Salop Leisure, I will be delighted to have traffic lights there. At the moment I have to wait for two lanes of drivers to stop to cross to the middle of the road, and then just hope for a long enough gap in the traffic to get to the London Road side. I’ve had several narrow escapes. I hope the lights get put in place BEFORE I get squashed!
Less than 5 million!
Bargain again.
How many stages will it have?
Wouldn’t it be cheaper to buy Sue a car?
Traffic islands/roundabouts were introduced to replace traffic lights, allowing for free flow of traffic without the constant stop/start of lights. Nowadays, driving standards and lane discipline are so poor amongst many drivers that utterly risk-averse councils feel the need to ruin them, and waste our money by putting lights on them.
They can then wring their hands and bleat about congestion (which they have created!) and us it as an excuse to squeeze yet more money out of motorist by way of expensive parking, road charges etc. etc.
£5 million !!! Thats alot of cups of tea and tents for the workers!! and about a grands worth of lights , well done .
A lot of the hold up to east bound traffic at Emstrey is due to the volume of west bound coming off the A5 at Emstrey and going up to the business park or London Road. This is almost a continuous stream that doesn’t let the west bound get a look in. Lights should help make it fairer, because, as said above driving discipline is poor and on big roundabouts traffic should merge one for one. This rarely happens eg., it tends to be the same at the top of Porthill. The one place where drivers are more generous, especially in the morning rushhour is at the junctions of New St and Copthorne Rd and going onto Frankwell where drivers tend to be very civil. Lights seem to be working well at Dobbies’ island though you need to get in the right lane.
The whole point of a roundabout is to enable traffic flows to cross evenly without danger of collision, as there would be if there was an “unsignalled” junction instead .
Putting lights up therefore negates the idea of a roundabout!!.
You might just as well dig the roundabout up, and have a signalled crossing as has been done in several places elswhere.
In over 40 years of driving - I have never seen any improvement to traffic managent by doing this.
The fundamental problem of a roundabouts is that drivers do not know how to use them, often giving way instead of merging - being in the wrong lane - and genrally not being “aware”.
Also - the “give way to traffic from the right does NOT extend to traffic 500 yds away from the roundabout!! With a bit of observation, planning, being in the right gear, means you can “filter” in without causing any problems to other road users.
TRAFFIC LIGHTS sre NOT the answer
Take that from a motorist with over 800,000 miles driving experience
As for pedestrians - they should be provided with under or over crossings - thus not needing to negotiate the traffic at all.
Just look at Bailey’s Island …. Who’s DAFT idea was it to place a pedestrian signalled crossing on the EXIT from a roundabout??? ….. A DISASTER waiting to happen !!
FFS!
“Substantially less than £5million”!!!?????
Are the proposed lights hand-crafted in magnesium by Peruvian artisans and transported by Llama across five continents?????
The company I work for is currently building 18 new apartments and a new medical centre. That project is 41 weeks long and will cost £3.1million!
Circa £5million to create congestion using needless traffic lights is condemnable, and will be yet another monumental waste of public money.
And, Sue, how many peds actually have to negotiate Emstrey Island? I suggest that the installation of these extortionately priced traffic lights will inconvenience the majority who use it; drivers. The needs of the many, let us not forget, outweigh the needs of the few.
Hi spindthrift.
I disaggree.
I think the lights would look rather nice in magnesium, and the llamas would go nice on the roundabout, in keeping with the sheep at Tesco’s.
And anyway - with reference to the famous monty pyhton sketch relating to llamas - maybe also a few norwegian blue parrots nailed to to a perch in the centre of the island would go rather nice too (well - for 5million - you might also get John Cleese And michael Palin to open the roundabout.
And …. what with all the other lights on other roundabouts, trial traffic systems, parkright, etc etc we could finally say (like the norwegian blue) that:
Shrewsbury is no more, has ceased to exist, has fallen off its mortal coil, in short …. has died !