New road will tighten Wokingham’s ring of steel
I just read the article in this week’s paper announcing that the Waterloo Road level crossing is to be closed once the South Wokingham Distributor Road in connected to Waterloo Road.
This will simply tighten the “ring of steel” that makes it difficult for
South Wokingham residents to get out of Wokingham. Far from being an “Eastern Gateway” this closure will simply cause more gridlock in this part of Wokingham.
I’ve lodged a comment on the planning web site and I’d urge anyone living in South Wokingham to consider doing the same.
You can do so at: planning. wokingham.gov.uk/FastWebPL/ welcome.asp and entering reference number 172.934
Here is the comment:
I want to object to the closure of the Waterloo Road crossing when the “Eastern Gateway” is constructed.
I live off Easthampstead Road and in order to drive to the Jennetts Park area and Southern Bracknell I will have two choices:
the rat-run up Rances Lane and try to turn right onto London Road (nearly impossible already due to queueing and traffic)
the Easthampstead Road crossing (Star Lane?), which is hopelessly overloaded, and then attempt to turn left at the far end of Easthampstead Road, which must be one of the most dangerous junctions in Berkshire, completely ignored by traffic planners.
The only other options are to drive all the way around the town centre or to try to go out on Finchampstead Road – both options being ridiculously long and hopelessly congested.
In either case, I have to get out on to Easthampstead Road which is extremely difficult already due to queueing and queue-jumping across the unenforced double white lines.
The closure of the Waterloo Road crossing will only make the traffic along Easthampstead Road even worse, making the queues longer and the junction at the far end more dangerous.
All this would be alleviated by keeping the Waterloo Road crossing open – at least until the extension of the “gateway” road reaches Easthampstead Road. Once that is in place, some of the traffic using the Rances Lane/ Easthampstead Road rat-run will start to use the Montague Park rat-run instead.
Can the traffic planners please consider us local Easthampstead Road area residents when making these plans. Colin & Christine Charman, via email