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Could a new bypass be built to solve Newbury's traffic problems?




District council refuses to rule out new road but says it has no plans at present

HOW do you solve Newbury's ongoing and well-documented traffic problems?

With an additional 3,500 homes being built in south Newbury in the next 10 years, that was the question being mooted once again last week.

When asked how it intended to cope with the extra traffic generated by the Newbury Racecourse and Sandleford Park developments, West Berkshire Council said it wouldn’t rule out building a new bypass or creating a crossing to the west of Newbury in the future.

As part of the mitigation for the 1,500 home racecourse development, developer David Wilson Homes will pay for a series of improvements to some of the town’s busiest junctions, including creating an extra right hand lane from Hambridge Road on to the A4 in a bid to ease congestion.

It will also provide the funding for improvements to Bear Lane and the Robin Hood roundabout.

Bloor Homes Southern, the main developer behind the Sandleford application to build 2,000 homes, has taken a similar approach – proposing to build short filter lanes on the approach to some of Newbury’s most congested roundabouts as a form of mitigation.

People had the opportunity to put their questions to the council’s traffic service manager, Mark Cole, at an annual meeting of Newbury Society last week.

During the meeting, Newbury town councillor John Gardiner said: “Traffic models show that by 2025, nearly every junction in Newbury will be at capacity.

“There needs to be a major rethinking and some fundamental thinking on the council’s part.”

In response, Mr Cole, said: “In the future maybe we can try to see if we can get another crossing out to the west of Newbury, but there is a lot of important land such as former battle sites that may be difficult in terms of planning permission.”

Speaking to the Newbury Weekly News after the meeting, he said: “There is nothing on the table in that respect. The point I was trying to make was that there has been various comments in the past about what we need for Newbury.

“Another western bypass or crossing is something which has been mentioned. Who knows, maybe in time that is something that will come to pass.

“Whether it would be physically deliverable is another matter.

“All town centres get heavily congested in the rush hour peak period, but unfortunately to get the Government funding for a new road, we’d have to prove that the need is strategic. They wouldn’t just give us the money because of congestion.”

Elsewhere, a new road will be built through the Sterling cables site as part of the new development, while West Berkshire Council has the government funding in place to deliver a new link road from the A339 into the London Road Industrial Estate.

n How do you think the council could solve Newbury's traffic problems? Email dan.cooper@newburynews.co.uk



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