Shared spaces scheme repairs now under way

MAJOR work is taking place to fix the town’s £4m shared road scheme.

The shared space project in Poynton replaced traffic lights with a narrow, single-lane road and roundabouts two years ago and sees cars, bikes and pedestrians all have equal priority on the road.

But a subsidence problem, caused by the lorries running directly over grids, is threatening the award-winning project.

Fixing the issue is expected to cost taxpayers many thousands of pounds.

Cheshire East Council began the complicated work to overcome the problem by installing a number of test grids at two or three locations inMay.

Now the extensive remedial work is underway to replace sunken and damaged granite block sets, slabs and kerbs on London Road North, London Road South and Chester Road.

It started on July 21 and will run until September 5.

It does mean roadworks with multi-way traffic signals in operation.

Cheshire East Council and Poynton Town Council have been working together on a solution since it was discovered last year.

Speaking in May as work began parish councillor Alex Smith said: “We are very proud of Poynton’s shared space scheme, although we fully accept that there are a number of outstanding issues that have taken too long to resolve.

“There is now a joint determination to deal with issues that can be expected to arise from such an innovative scheme, which has been essential to Poynton’s revitalisation.

The shared spaces scheme was designed by Ben Hamilton-Baillie as an innovative solution to cope with the 26,000 daily vehicle movements through Poynton. It won Highway Magazine’s 2013 award for congestion reduction.