£49m Colliery Way bypass 'has had the desired effect'

GEDLING ACCESS ROAD A SUCCESS - BUT MORE COULD STILL USE IT

- By OLIVER PRIDMORE

A MAJOR £49 million bypass is said to have exceeded expectations in easing pressure on a village three years on from its opening.

Gedling Access Road, known as Colliery Way, officially opened to traffic in March 2022 following years of campaigning.

Nottinghamshire County Council says that 11.7 million vehicles have travelled along the route since then.

The road links the B684 Mapperley Plains with the A612 Trent Valley Road, allowing traffic to bypass Gedling Village.

As well as reducing traffic through Gedling, the other key aim of the road was to serve the Chase Farm development, which will eventually comprise over 1,000 new homes when work is complete next year.

Although some hail the major bypass a success, others have questioned whether it needs to be used more for residents to "get their money's worth".

Many will recall that, just nine months after opening, the county council confirmed that a pothole had appeared on Colliery Way that needed fixing.

Despite that initial embarrassment, the authority says the road has been a success since then.

A highways manager from the council says that, during the design process for the bypass, it was predicted that constructing Colliery Way would involve a decrease of 4,200 vehicles a day on Arnold Lane.

Actual figures now show a reduction of 4,400 vehicles per day.

For Shearing Hill, further down the village from Arnold Lane, the annual average daily traffic flow was predicted to be 10,550 in the road's opening year.

The recorded traffic flow on that section of road last year was 10,700.