Parking spaces out of action during road work
SIXTY parking spaces are set to go temporarily at the Arle Court Park and Ride in Cheltenham while major highway work is carried out.
Gloucestershire County Council wants to widen the Hatherley Lane approach to the Arle Court roundabout, which takes traffic to and from the A40 Golden Valley Bypass.
It also wants to build a new exit onto the bypass from the park and ride site, to take some of the pressure off the busy roundabout.
The scheme is intended to ease congestion as part of a wider project to improve traffic flow along the A40 corridor ahead of the proposed development of a £650m cyber business park and thousands of homes on the western edge of Cheltenham.
The first of four phases, at Arle Court, is expected to last for a year and begin either this month or in July.
A planning application has been submitted to the borough council by the county council.
It seeks permission to widen Hatherley Lane, build the exit onto the A40 and set up a construction compound on a site that has just been cleared.
That site had two houses on it, between Hatherley Lane and the park and ride, until they were demolished last month.
If the compound is allowed, it will become the building site base for all four phases of the project and will temporarily take up 60 of the park and ride’s 576 parking spaces.
In its application, Gloucestershire County Council said: “The widening of Hatherley Lane to provide an
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additional traffic lane on the southern approach to Arle Court Roundabout, including the formation of a new vehicular access from the Arle Court Park & Ride site onto the A40, are intended to work in tandem to improve capacity at Arle Court Roundabout.
“Based on the level of housing and employment growth planned in Cheltenham as part of the adopted JCS, if the improvements to the A40 and Arle Court Roundabout are not progressed, this will ultimately present a constraint to future development.”
It added that the A40 improvements were intended to support the wider transport objectives of the county, alongside the proposed improvement to junction 10 of the M5.