Road improvements for the town – I doubt it

On the day that Cheshire East Council announced that the £58m Middlewich bypass would go ahead, it announced it had been successful with two national productivity investment fund bids totalling £8.5m.

In Macclesfield, the Council state the funding will go directly towards improving the busy Silk Road and Hibel Road junction in the town.

According to a report in this week’s Macclesfield Express: “Council bosses say the roundabout will be replaced with a system of phased traffic lights which will ease congestion at the site, which leads into the town centre, up into Hurdsfield and into Tesco supermarket nearby.”

Ed: Run that by me again. Swap an effective roundabout for a set of traffic lights?

Since when was that a good idea?

A good proportion of £8.5 million will need to be set aside to resolve the chaos, which will become evident, when the Black Lane (redevelopment) scheme commences.

For some time I’ve been convinced that the traffic lights at the junction of Black Lane and Hurdsfield Road are weighted – not in favour of the main Hurdsfield Road – but in favour of the minor Black Lane. Why? Tesco must be paying for that weighting – so that traffic exiting their car park isn’t allowed to back-up.

That wouldn’t be good for trade would it.