£9m needed to make Telford ring road two-way
Friday 16th September 2011, 11:02AM BST.
A bid for nearly £9 million of Government cash is to be lodged so vehicles can travel in both directions on the main road which goes around Telford town centre’s shopping complex.
The four roads – Woodhouse Central, Lawn Central, Grange Central and Coach Central – which form a square around the shopping centre are currently one-way.
Council chiefs believe making the route – known as the box road – two-way would help traffic flow more easily around the town and also link the town centre to the new £250 million Southwater development.
The authority is one of 13 that has been encouraged to apply for cash from the Department for Transport’s Local Sustainable Transport Fund.
Telford & Wrekin Council’s cabinet is expected to approve the commissioning of a full business plan to submit with the bid at a meeting on Thursday.
The request for £8.8 million would be supplemented by £3 million from the council and contributions from developers. The business plan will cost an estimated £100,000 and be met using spare cash in the highways and transport budget.
Councillor Hilda Rhodes, cabinet member for transport, environment and community protection, said: “The scheme is integral to link existing development sites such as the shopping centre with new development sites such as the Southwater development area.”
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It works perfectly well as a multi-lane one way system. It only takes a couple of minutes to do a complete circuit.
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I dont think its do with the amount of time it takes to get round. its to make traffic flow easier, and as it says, will link it up with the new develpoment. Good idea
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lets see!!!!!!! 9 million pound watsted on the changes or a couple of mins extra on a journey.erm let me thinks . put the 9 million on somthing else like the water park we was promised… the road works fine as it is.. and can still access the southwater development. i am sure this wasnt in place before they started to build the project.and then some big wig on £100.000 plus decided “oh damn we cant access the southwater project lets change the road….
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What a stupid idea!
The ring road works perfectly well as it is.
West brom had a one way system like ours and changed it to 2 way. And it’s now worse than it was.
If something isn’t broken and works fine, don’t waste £9m of taxpayers money changing it!!
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Have you tried crossing it as a pedestrian? Its not fun. It doesn’t work as a street so it doesn’t work fine and needs fixing.
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grey,how ridiculous! I suppose if it has two way traffic it will be easier to cross?…..what a way to justify wasting 9 Million.
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But its not just about making them two way, its about downgrading the box roads altogether, reducing the amount of traffic using them, giving more space for pedestrians and generally reducing the amount of space given over to cars at the expense of people in central Telford to improve the public realm.
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Grey – There are a number of crossing points. Bridges, half sections and traffic lights.
It’s very easy to cross!! Pedestrians need to stop being lazy and actually use the bridge and the traffic lights instead of walking out into traffic near the bus stop to go to asda carpark.
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Why is it that people are the ones who are forced to go over or under the roadways. Cars should work around people not the other way around in my opinion.
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Grey it appears that either you haven’t read the above report “Telford & Wrekin Council chiefs believe making the route – known as the box road – two-way would help traffic flow more easily around the town”
or know something that the council aren’t telling us!
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Yes I have crossed it many times. The Bridge from the Multistorey car park, pedestrian crossing from the Council Offices, underpass from Magistrates Court and over head Mall from the Library. Hardly a life threatening experience! Honestly *tut*
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Waste of money, changing a system thats been there for as long as it has been is a recipe for disaster, just look at the mess they made at the Trench lock/A442 island.
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… Which works incredibly well (except if you don’t like change!).
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agreed
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It seems unlikely that the change to two-way traffic wll make traffic flow better.
It will also, inevitably make the risk of collisions greater, and, in an effort to mitigate this risk, I don’t doubt we will see more obstacles to traffic flow, by way of traffic lights.
We already have one set of traffic lights, by Beatties, which automatically stop traffic in off-peak periods, despite no opposing demand, causing unnecessary delay to motorists, and wasting fuel – surely we don’t need more?
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I agree really stupid idea and waste of money the three lane one way system works the best, it was even better before the last silly redsign to allow buses the other way around and asda car park exit until this time there was never any problem with traffic queues the first christmas after these alterations I can rember traffic being snarled up. If they want get traffic flowing freely it should be a three lane system all the way around without lights for all vehicles including buses.
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Kev, So basically you’d like the ring road to be effectively a mini-motorway around the town centre. Do you want a 70mph speed limit as well? I know most drivers are already incapable of driving at 30mph on the ring road especially on Lawn Central. This causes real problems when joining from Ironmasters Way as many vehicles are travelling too quickly to allow you to pull out safely (it is up a slope) and move to the middle lane. Result is that you have to wait far longer than needed, burning fuel and creating pollution while your vehicle’s engine idles.
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WHY ???????
It Is Not Broken So Don’t Try To Fix It.
I thought that only Shrewsbury had money to throw away on stupid idea’s, but evidently no so.
Unbelievable.
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If TWC are successfull is getting this money will they use the blind man in the Outer Hebrides who has never been to Telford to design the new road layout as they did with Trench Lock, ClLock Tower and countless other supposed ‘improvements’ ?
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Complete & utter waste of money, there is no need for this & the 9million would be better spent elsewhere within Telford. You know those places that look complete rubbish but never have anything done to them.
Grey your excuses are lame, there is plenty of places for pedestrians to cross around the centre, I should know I do the walk near enough every week!
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Mmmmmm let me think, wasn’t it a two way system when the Town Centre was first built?
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Why do people with cars think they own roads? if you dont like it, WALK!!!
Finally the box road is going, this is not just about traffic flow but creating a town. And to mike, it is sooo broken, one of the main reasons Telford centre lacks any ‘centre’ is because of the restricting road. In its current state it is accually preventing the town centre from growing, and for a new town that is never good news. As for crossing the road, 20mph is going to be the speed limit :)
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They feel they own it because they pay tax to go on it?
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Quote ‘Why do people with car think they own roads?’
Why are roads built?… i don’t see my predestrians on the eastern primary? some people posting on these threads need to get an idea of what roads actually do… then come back and post!
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Every car owner pays something called ROAD tax so yeah we (sort of) own the roads.
Nothing wrong with dropping the speed limit to 20mph and put better crossings in, way cheaper than what they want to do.
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No one pays road tax, it is Vehicle Excise Duty which is a tax on using a motor vehicle on a public highway. All of us who work pay tax, some of which goes towards the roads and everyone who pays council tax also contributes. So car drivers do not ‘own’ the roads. Many roads were laid down by the Romans for marching armies (pedsetrians), they were then used by horsedrawn vehicles and bicycles. Eventually around 100 years ago cars arrived and now the drivers think they own them!!!
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Whatever it’s officially called I have to pay TAX to use my vehicle on the ROAD.
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Your quite correct Realist, but your not actually being real. If you look through history especially the Romans and Roads, you will see that these armies of pedestrians had vehicles, chariots, wagons, horse drawn siege equipment etc. I have never seen a history book that describes the way the romans built roads to invade, “wait a few weeks Germania, while we build a road to get to the battle”. C’mon, I know some dont agree with the proposal and to me its a waste, but if it creates jobs in this economy, then do it. I’m more shocked by the council having 100 grand spare cash. I thought they were over budget on salt etc last year.
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Its Vehicle Excise Duty actually – nothing to do with roads what so ever. Just a tax.
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How will the new system no longer prevent the town centre from growing?
it’ll still be there… just allowing traffic both ways.
I still don’t see it helping and I dont see why pedestrians (of which I have been one for years and still am for another month or so) are complaining that its hard to cross with the amount of crossing points available to them … But hey… Maybe i’m just missing the point.
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No doubt it is another part of the “cunning” 2006 transport plan, where Labour admitted to trying to get people out of their cars, onto public transport…if they can find the public transport that is.
9 million is sooo easy to spend when it isn’t your own money, eh fellas?
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At a time when money is tight, spending £9 million on changing a system that has been working fine, is just stupid, why not leave it until things improve or if its so the new Southwater development would benefit from the layout change, get them to pay for it.
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TWC should use the money to look after the roads they already have and not let them fall into the state of dis-repair that they are in now.
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Couldn’t agree more, I wonder if TWC would tell us how much compensation they’ve paid out for popped tyres and broken suspension that people have claimed.
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Well I avoid the place like the plague, except at off peak times but if these plans go ahead, I will avoid it totally and no doubt thousands of others will too, if they have any sense,it will be interesting to see how trade is affected in the new “town” they are planning..
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A total waste of money! The Council should spend this £12 million pounds on improving the very poor public transport in Telford and Shropshire. With that sort of money the Council could bring back a direct rail link to London and give the local economy and toruism a big boost!
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They shouldn’t be changing this road system that works, this system and the ease of parking, etc is the primary reason why the Telford Shopping Centre attracts people not only from Telford, but Shrewsbury, Wolves, Stafford etc….
If you make it difficult for people to come, they will just go elsewhere…. I suspect this funding is one of the only ones the council is entitled for under the governments tight wallets spending plan at the current time… and they want a piece of the action…. secondary is wether we actually need it or not!
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If It Ain’t Broke … Throw Money At It Until It Is.
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That’s clever. I like that, ‘throw money at it until it is! That’s exactly what’ll happen.
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Most people who have commented think it’s a
pointless waste of money.
As did most people regarding the pointless
crossing in the middle of Shrewsbury’s Smithfield road oh and lets not forget Quantum leap.
Why will councils not listen to public opinion?
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Telford town centre is already very hard to negociate as a pedestrian so why attempt to bring even more traffic in?
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Matthew,
In what way is it ‘hard to negotiate as a pedestrian’? Where are you trying to get to that you cannot currently get to safely on foot?
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Peter.
My comment was aimed at Matthew too. I agree with you.
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No it’s not. Sorry, but that’s just a silly statement to make.
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As said before, it it ain’t broke don’t fix it, why not use the money to keep your employees happy!
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We can often forgive a child who is frightend of the dark. The tradegy of life is when adults are afraid of the light.
What a total waste of tax payers money, for what. Please explain.
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“We can often forgive a child who is frightend of the dark. The tragedy of life is when adults are afraid of the light.”
That’s brilliant, Ron.
It really sums up council planning and attitudes.
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Having looked at the report on the councils website the scheme isn’t just about making the road two way. As I said earlier its about making the town centre more pedestrian friendly, improving the public realm and opening up other sites within the centre for redevelopment.
The scheme also includes improvements to the pedestrian links from the train station, improvements to the Silkin Way, the Stafford to Telford cycle route, a park and ride for the Ironbridge Gorge, area travel plans and something called low carbon life skills training for the children.
All of which sound good to me.
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“low carbon life skills training for the children.”
No doubt that will come with it’s own management team, with people earning in excess of £100K…..
It’s probably what Tuftie and the Green Cross man used to teach for next to nothing…..how to cross the road safely, by using an underpass or bridge and hence, not getting run over or inhaling too much CO.
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I’ve still got my Tuffty mug and badge!
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How on earth did we all get to middle age without such training….we must be very, very lucky.
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lets see!!!!!!! 9 million pound watsted on the changes or a couple of mins extra on a journey.erm let me thinks . put the 9 million on somthing else like the water park we was promised… the road works fine as it is.. and can still access the southwater development. i am sure this wasnt in place before they started to build the project.and then some big wig on £100.000 plus decided “oh damn we cant access the southwater project lets change the road….
COMPLETE AND UTTER WASTE OF MONEY…THE COUNCIL IS A JOKE
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Is there anyone clever than me who can tell me how many pot holes £9m will fill?
Then can they tell me how many twice as much money will fill as these things always double budget?
Thanx
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