“Joined up thinking and effective action” has been called for to find a solution to the traffic issues on the A36 Southampton Road in Salisbury.

Cllr Charles McGrath, who also serves as a Wiltshire councillor, put forward a motion at a meeting on June 27 seeking Salisbury City Council’s support for a cross-party working group set up to look at these issues and solutions and to help lobby National Highways.

The working group aims to tackle issues related to congestion on the A36 on Churchill Way but more specifically on Southampton Road and was set up after discussions by Salisbury Area Board.

Cllr Annie Riddle told the meeting that the city council administration would “gladly” get involved in “lobbying joined up thinking and effective action to improve our people’s quality of life”.

“It would be great if instead of messing around rebranding themselves from the Highways Agency to Highways England to National Highways, those in charge of our national roads infrastructure just got on with the job," she said.

“Salisbury’s traffic congestion won’t be solved unless National Highways takes action, both to speed up the flow on the A36 and in the longer term create a route that takes through traffic away from Salisbury.

“The ludicrous planning decision – taken at national level against local council advice – to allow a drive-thru to be built at the Tesco roundabout made the jams on Southampton Road predictable worse.”

Cllr Riddle added that the council administration would “do everything we can to promote efforts to improve Salisbury’s traffic congestion”.

The working group is chaired by county and city councillor Ricky Rogers, who welcomed the support of the city council and wanted to lobby National Highways to talk with the group and also share its plans.

But admitted: “It is not going to change the world this working group. It is going to be a real struggle to get National Highways to come and talk to us.”

The aim of the working group, Cllr Rogers explained, was “to try and come up with some proposal to tackle that decades long crisis of the congestion on the Southampton Road past the college”.

“Any constructive idea would be welcome,” said Cllr Rogers. "We just want to open a dialogue with them [National Highways] and see if there is a constructive way of moving forward.”

Cllr Paul Sample said a “solution” was needed to “unblock the log-jam” and that the bottleneck was not only “unhealthy” because of particulates and emissions but there was also issues for residents in Alderbury and Whaddon who, he said, were finding it easier to do their shopping in Southampton or Totten rather than sit in traffic jams on the A36.

This, he said, was having a “direct impact” on the city’s economy.

Councillors supported the motion for the city council to support the working group and lobby National Highways over the A36.

 

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