VIL­LAGE PROMISED AC­TION OVER GRIDLOCK NEAR BEAUTY SPOT

Bangor Mail - - News - Gareth Wyn Wil­liams

ACOMMUNITY has been promised ac­tion to solve “traf­fic chaos” fol­low­ing re­ports that “bumper to bumper” gridlock has seen mo­torists stranded for up to 30 min­utes.

Ynys Lland­dwyn, off the coast of Anglesey, is known for its light­house, pi­lots’ cot­tages and church ruins, and at­tracts tens of thou­sands of vis­i­tors each year.

But get­ting to and from the tidal is­land has long been an is­sue, with the only pub­lic ve­hi­cle ac­cess to the car park be­ing the nar­row road lead­ing from the vil­lage of New­bor­ough along Church Street.

Ac­cord­ing to lo­cal traders, de­lays of half an hour have been re­ported dur­ing bank hol­i­days and the height of summer as mo­torists try to ma­noeu­vre from one end of the vil­lage to the other.

Re­spond­ing to long-run­ning calls for ac­tion, the com­mu­nity coun­cil held a pub­lic meet­ing last Wed­nes­day, which was at­tended by rep­re­sen­ta­tives from both Anglesey Coun­cil’s high­ways de­part­ment and Nat­u­ral Re­sources Wales (NRW), who man­age much of the land sur­round­ing the is­land.

Sev­eral calls were made for NRW to con­sider op­tions in­clud­ing re-open­ing for­mer roads and op­er­at­ing a one-way sys­tem to avoid ve­hi­cles hav­ing

to pass on the nar­row wind­ing road now in use.

Some lo­cals, among the 100 or so in at­ten­dance, also claimed they were un­able to use the road to walk down to St Peter’s Church, near the an­cient Llys Rhosyr royal court, due to the vol­ume of traf­fic.

Dy­lan Wil­liams of NRW said an ad­di­tional prob­lem was con­tin­ued ero­sion of the car park, which they ex­pected to and only years.

While they were look­ing at us­ing var­i­ous ac­cess roads to dis­si­pate traf­fic, their con­di­tion means this is “not some­thing that can be achieved overnight.”

Mr Wil­liams said: “We will have to im­ple­ment new park­ing ar­range­ments, but what we don’t want to do is just build an­other big­ger car park.

“Draw­ing more vis­i­tors in to be op­er­a­tional for 15 use the ex­ist­ing in­fra­struc­ture just won’t work. We need to look at the whole area, work­ing with the coun­cil, to find a longer term so­lu­tion.

“One pro­posal is to re-open the road and im­ple­ment a oneway sys­tem to­wards the Mall­traeth end and Llyn Parc Mawr but at this stage we can’t prom­ise any­thing. There are sev­eral ways un­der con­sid­er­a­tion.”

Cllr Tim Owen, chair of Rhosyr Com­mu­nity Coun­cil, said: “This has been a great op­por­tu­nity for ev­ery­one to have their say. Many is­sues have been raised, which hope­fully have been taken on board, but we don’t want to lose the mo­men­tum.”

A spokesper­son for Anglesey coun­cil said: “We are aware of the high con­cen­tra­tion of traf­fic through New­bor­ough, es­pe­cially dur­ing peak sea­son. We have met with the lo­cal coun­cil­lors and com­mu­nity coun­cil and are work­ing with Nat­u­ral Re­sources Wales to find a res­o­lu­tion.”

● Traf­fic flow is a ma­jor prob­lem in New­bor­ough, es­pe­cially in summer, and 100 vil­lagers at­tended a meet­ing with au­thor­i­ties to seek solutions (in­set)

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