Take a look at the queues on roundabout, urges councillor
ARE A COMMON COMLAINT
A DERBY councillor has urged colleagues to investigate high levels of traffic at one of the city’s most problematic roundabouts.
Littleover Liberal Democrat councillor Lucy Care called on councillors at a city council planning meeting to visit Kingsway island themselves to see queuing at busy times.
The junction, which is used to access Kingsway Retail Park, The King’s Highway pub and hundreds of new flats at Manor Kingsway, as well as the Kingsway Hospital site, is one of the most complained about roundabouts in Derby in terms of traffic queues and waiting times.
The issue has been ongoing for many years.
And it is likely that further traffic issues will be evident in the coming weeks with Christmas just around the corner and the retail park set to attract many hundreds of shoppers daily.
At a recent planning meeting, Councillor Care spoke about the issue during discussion on future site visits for current planning applications.
Opposite the Kingsway retail park hundreds of homes have been built, or are under construction, as part of the Manor Kingsway development.
The firm behind the new Manor Kingsway site, Tilia Homes, has called on permission from Derby City Council to allow more of its new homes to become occupied before any potential major work starts on the A38. Councillor Care said: “I’m not going to recommend a site visit because we would probably go in the middle of the day when there is not such a problem.
“But can I encourage people if they are driving around Kingsway, morning or afternoon, to just have a look at what the queues are like. “See what it looks like in terms of the queues and the difficulty of getting out of this site.
“It is one of the complaints that we get from people in the area. (They say) ‘When are they going to do something about that junction?’”
In 2016, Derby City Council added traffic lights at the retail park’s entrance in a bid to improve traffic congestion.
However, these were soon switched off when, if anything, they made the situation worse.
SHE SAYS HOLD-UPS AT KINGSWAY
See what it looks like in terms of the queues and the difficulty of getting out of this site. Lucy Care