Common sense needed to solve Blackburn Road traffic

There is no doubt that the flow of traffic is badly disrupted by the many sets of traffic lights between Bar Lane and Bridge Street. When planning permission was granted for the conversion of Sir John Holden's Mill, TfGM stated that a new system known as Scoot would ensure all the lights would be synchronised.

It was stated that a vehicle travelling at the speed limit would get through each set of lights without stopping once it had cleared the first.

Everyone knows that this has never worked and is the one of the issues Astley Bridge councillors have repeatedly raised at meetings with TfGM, but still no solution has been offered.

A second problem is the high number of vehicles wanting to turn right at the Tramways.

This effectively reduces Blackburn Road to a single lane southbound. Although the junction is in Crompton Ward, we asked TfGM to discuss this problem with ward councillors and look at the consequences and alternatives if right turns were banned.

Again this has never been resolved.

There are many other points including turning movements at the Asda junction and the reconfiguration of those lights all of which are rightly a concern.

Labour's Cabinet Member for Transport recently stated in The Bolton News that the only long term solution is a by-pass.

I have already given notice that at the council meeting that I will give him and his Labour colleagues, including for Crompton Ward, the chance to support Conservatives and agree to produce plans to build a new road using perhaps in part the existing road through Tonge Valley.

This is an issue I on which I have campaigned for more than 40 years.

I still have copies of the original plans for a Blackburn Road by-pass which Labour councillors abandoned.

Despite the failure to address the problem before now, I hope that at last common sense will prevail and the need for action is recognised.

Cllr John Walsh

Astley Bridge Ward

Bolton Council