Airdrie & Coatbridge Advertiser
New speed limits and traffic calming for village
Chicanes, speed tables and weight limits to be introduced
JUDITH TONNER
Chicanes and speed tables are to be installed on a busy Chapelhall road, and a weight restriction and new speed limits introduced to improve traffic flow and road safety.
Work will be carried out later this month to install the traffic calming measures on Woodhall Street, currently used as a main route through the village.
Two speed tables – which will be six metres long and “constructed the full width of the carriageway” – will be put in place near Glen Avon Drive and Russell Street; while the eight- metre by four- metre chicanes are to be placed near the former road and Lancaster Avenue.
A weight restriction of 7.5 tonnes is also being introduced along the whole length of adjoining Woodhall and Lauchope Streets, from their junctions with Lancaster Avenue and the A73 Main Street, as part of long-running moves to deter heavy goods vehicles from the narrow local route.
Meanwhile, a speed limit of 20 miles per hour is being introduced on 45 streets throughout the village, including Lauchope and Woodhall Streets and adjoining Bo’ness Road, while a 40mph limit will be in place on Lancaster Avenue.
Woodhall Street will be closed between Glenavon Drive and Honeywell Crescent during the school holiday week beginning on Monday, October 14, to allow the traffic calming measures to be installed by council contractor HK & Son Construction.
Motorists will be diverted via Lancaster Avenue and the A73 throughout the five-day closure.
A spokesperson for North Lanarkshire Council said the improvement works are “to address local community road safety concerns [and] follow on from the consultation that the council carried out previously with the community”.
People power by residents won a U- turn in 2017, when their concerns over a planned five-month closure of the route to widen the road – intended to increase junction capacity and improve air quality – led to the project being dropped by roads officials.
They gave a commitment at that time to “stop the process” and “go away and take extra steps” to address the issues raised by villagers, who described the main issue on the route as the number of HGVs using it en route to and from the M80.
Instead, two months of road and footway widening were carried out last summer, followed by resurfacing; with signs being put in place to divert lorry traffic away from the route through the centre of the village.
North Lanarkshire officials said at that time: “Following discussions with the local community, the council is continuing to develop other proposals to divert lorries away from Lauchope Street and Woodhall Street.”
The route’s busy junction with Main Street was named in February as the seventh most polluted road in Scotland, with average nitrogen dioxide levels of 39.56 microgrammes per cubic metre in 2018, close to the legal maximum of 40 microgrammes.