Councillor Paul Sample requests the Board consider supporting his motion that National Highways carry out works to dual the carriage way of the A36 from Petersfinger to College Street roundabout in order to reduce traffic congestion.
Cllr Paul Sample
Minutes:
Cllr Paul Sample brought a motion to the Board for consideration, this was:
That the Board supports the request for National Highways to carry out works to dual the carriage way of the A36 from Petersfinger to College Street roundabout in order to reduce traffic congestion.
The motion was seconded by Cllr Ricky Rogers.
Cllr Sample gave some background to his motion, noting that the issue of congestion related to development and was included in the Salisbury Vision in 2008. An objective of that project was to carry out a study on congestion, however 14 years on, nothing had changed.
Cllr Sample suggested that the congestion issues associated with the A36 could be sorted by duelling the A36 where it was currently single carriageway, adding that if that was too much, then another option was to consider a peak time contraflow, but initially the first step would be to carry out a feasibility study to address all congestion identified in 2008.
Cllr Mark McClelland, in his capacity as Cabinet Member for Transport, Waste, Street Scene and Flooding noted that the Council was working closely with National Highways, who had provided the following statement:
National Highways (NH) is committed to improving congestion on the A36 through Salisbury and we are developing several schemes to achieve this. Our priority is Southampton Road and College Roundabout and we are currently working on the initial stages of developing an Option Assessment Report (OAR) for this corridor, complimenting and building upon the other work already being undertaken along the A36 through Salisbury.
To date, we have identified a number of improvement options, which will be tested using traffic modelling to identify potential improvement options within the corridor and determine their effectiveness to improve congestion, delays and journey time reliability.
We are also updating the existing traffic model and will shortly be undertaking traffic surveys, in collaboration with Wiltshire Council (WC), to provide up to date traffic flows to use within the model.
Following completion of initial modelling work and subsequent preparation of the OAR, we will report our findings and recommendations to Wiltshire Council. Further feasibility and preliminary design work will then be undertaken together with a value for money exercise to inform option selection, with close collaboration with WC to ensure any future schemes are feasible and fit for purpose.
Cllr McClelland noted that Officers had been working on this issue since September 2021 and advised the Board to leave the issue to the experts who were already considering appropriate highways schemes.
Cllr McGrath as ward member for Southampton Road, agreed that more should be done to lobby NH to get more done and suggested that the motion needed to include parts of Churchill Way as well. He noted that there were some practical concerns with duelling the road, due to the businesses along the road and the central safety barrier which had been installed some years ago for safety.
As well as the Area Board lobbying NH, he suggested that there could be more interaction between Officers and the Board and proposed that a working group be formed to liaise with Officers and NH, to monitor the progress and to receive regular update reports.
Cllr Sample agreed with the amendment to the motion, to form a working group and to include areas of Churchill Way but noted that his focus was on the A36 from College Roundabout out towards the Alderbury bypass.
Cllr Rogers noted that the Board had received a presentation from NH around 6 years ago, where the Board fed back a number of ideas. Since that time the board had not received any follow up.
It was suggested that Salisbury City Council also be invited to send a representative to the working group.
Cllr McClelland strongly noted that the formation of a working group was an unnecessary move and went well beyond the competences of the Officers and therefore did not support the motion.
The Board voted on the amended motion.
Recommendation
The Salisbury Area Board requests that National Highways carry out a feasibility study to address congestion along the A36 from College Roundabout to Petersfinger and to include sections of Churchill Way and that it considers the request to dual the carriage way from College Roundabout to Petersfinger.
In addition, the Salisbury Area Board will form an A36 Working Group to liaise with National Highways and WC Officers with the aim of receiving regular progress reports and invites Salisbury City Council to nominate a representative to sit on the Working Group.