Plans for dangerous roundabout
Thursday 5th July 2007, 11:05AM BST.
Long awaited safety improvements are to be made to one of Shrewsbury’s main roundabouts.
Highways managers have announced that work will start at Dobbies roundabout – where the A5 meets the A49 near Meole Brace – early in the new year.
The scheme to install traffic lights will cost about £650,000. It is expected to start in January 2008.
Shrewsbury and Atcham MP Daniel Kawczynski today said he was delighted that campaigning for the improvements had finally paid off.
He met with Dennis Wheeler, the Highways Agency’s route performance manager, and Derek Price, area steward from managing agent contractor Amey Mouchel, last week to see the provisional plans drawn up for the roundabout.
Mr Wheeler said: “The Highways Agency have looked at a number of options for improvements at the junction and have identified a cost-effective signal controlled scheme with new signing and lining, that will improve safety, by managing speed at the roundabout and reducing the possibility of collisions.
“It will also reduce queuing by controlling the entry of traffic to the roundabout.
“The agency has secured the estimated £650,000 funding and the scheme is currently programmed to go out to tender in the early autumn and start on site in January 2008.”
The installation will include some resurfacing work while one half of the existing pedestrian and cyclist crossing on the A5 will be moved.
It is expected work will take about 20 weeks to complete.
Mr Kawczynski said: “I am thrilled that the plans to upgrade Dobbies roundabout are finally coming to fruition.
“We have been very lucky so far to have avoided any fatalities at this point, but there is an ever-present danger of a serious accident here, with the roundabout in its current uncontrolled state.
“I know that some campaigners would have liked to see a flyover or underpass instead of the roundabout, but the funding for this would have taken many, many years to secure, if at all.”
He added: “Instead, the traffic light control system will both increase the safety at the roundabout and speed up the flow of traffic, reducing the congestion that so many of us suffer there, especially during the holiday season.
“There has been recent success with a similar scheme at junction four of the M54.”
By Steve Todd
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Do Dobbies own the roundabout? It is always referenced as if they do. In the short term, to slow traffic down, the authorities should place speed bumps on the roundabout.
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Harold, you obviously have a very boring life to spend your time commenting on every single story.
And no Dobbies don’t own it (even though i realise you are joking.) It’s Highways Agency maintained.
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Even when Baileys Garden Centre was there it was known as ‘Bailey’s roundabout’. What on earth is wrong with giving it a reference so people know where you are talking about.
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what a misleading headline, I was expecting to hear news of a new dangerous roundabout that was being planned…
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Claire – nothing is wrong with giving it a reference, my dear. However, in Telford, many, many, many roundabouts attract corporate sponsorship as well as having a specifc name for reference [for instance, the Garrison Roundabout at Donnington] – Dobbies are obviously cashing in on their free advertising every time this roundabout is mentioned in the media. Perhaps the roundabout needs a specific name…or sponsorship…from Dobbies?
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I think that the biggest problem with Dobbies roundabout is that the planners who originally gave permission for it to be built should be named and shamed, it is very very rare that you hear of planners admitting that they make any mistakes – woth Dobbies roundabout they did. Access to the garden centre and the petrol station should be further up the A49.
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Whats the obsession with adding traffic lights on every single roundabout, they seriously disrupt the flow of traffic as Wellington recently found out!
The law needs to be tighter for idiotic drivers who hurtle up and down roads, lane hopping etc.
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There should never have been a roundabout there in the original design, but the penny pinching government of the day failed to take the volume of A49 traffic into account. The original design included a flyover. The Emstrey roundabout is nearly as bad, especially geting out of Weeping Cross Lane. I am sure that the new football ground traffic will highlight this.
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A flyover and slip roads would have been a nice alternative to traffic lights which will do nothing but cause more traffic congestion.
Who cares what the island Baileys Dobbies. it’s an association to a locally known landmanrk
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Traffic lights?! Whoever planned that probably doesn’t drive over there at 8-9am.
It gets very slow as it is, but the traffic flows well – about as well as it can, given the number of cars.
The problem is, as they say, that it’s a dangerous roundabout. This isn’t because it’s “uncontrolled”! It’s because the lanes around it are badly designed and the entry/exits are badly placed.
What they should be doing, to start with, is *removing* the existing traffic lights on the crossing over the A5 and putting in a foot bridge.
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Roundabouts, by design, aid the flow of traffic. Trench Lock Interchange used to manage traffic movements with aplomb, but since traffic lights were added it does nothing but aid congestion.
What is it these days with the fixation of removing the responsibility from the driver?
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I used to live in the town where Roundabouts were invented – Aylesbury in BUCKS.
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