Residents are being offered the chance to discuss the finer details of a roundabout improvement scheme with the team behind the project.
The long-mooted £5 million improvement scheme at the Pwllypant roundabout is finally due to get underway on Monday, October 9, and is expected to last up to 12 months.
Proposals were given the go-ahead by Caerphilly County Borough Council in June, after two years of funding setbacks.
The improvements aim to alleviate traffic and congestion at the roundabout – where the A468, A469 and Pontygwindy Road meet – while increasing capacity on the roundabout, improving bus services’ journey time and reliability, and reducing traffic travelling through Caerphilly town, thus improving air quality.
Ahead of the work commencing, the council’s appointed contractor, Walters UK Ltd, has organised three ‘Meet the Team’ events, where members of the public will have the opportunity to discuss the improvement works with members of the project team.
The events are being held on:
• Wednesday, October 4 – Pwllypant Village Hall, Central Street – between 1.30pm and 5.30pm.
• Friday, October 6 – Trecenydd Community Centre, Second Avenue – between 1pm and 4pm.
• Saturday, October 7 – Caerphilly Library – between 10am and 2pm.
The multimillion pound scheme will see the following improvements made:
• Full-time traffic lights at the roundabout.
• Introduction of pedestrian crossings on the eastbound lane of the A468/A469 and towards Trecenydd.
• A new footway linking the existing pedestrian over bridge on the A468/A469 to the footway on Pontygwindy Road.
• An additional filter lane on the A469 from Llanbradach and extension to the existing filter lanes.
• A dual-lane approach on the eastbound lane of A468/A469 and dualled exit from roundabout.
• An additional filter lane and extension in length to existing filters on Pontygwindy Road.
• A dual-lane approach to the A468 heading towards Bedwas and exit to the roundabout.
As works progress, residents can access updates on the scheme via www.caerphilly.gov.uk/pwllypant.
Full-time traffic lights, utter stupidity. £5 million pound spent to make motorists stop at traffic lights at 1am in the morning when they’re the only vehicle on the road, £5 million pound spent to increase pollution levels and increase congestion, perhaps these improvement plans have been dreamt up by the same twerp who sets the variable speed limit on the M4.
Agreed, full-time traffic lights are totally stupid. Roundabouts are supposed to keep traffic flowing. The problem is that this one has exceed the traffic capacity that any roundabout can handle so now it is to be turned in to a horribly complicated intersection. Truth is that since the capacity of the roads leading into and out of this intersection are not being increased these changes will have no impact on the level of congestion whatsoever.
Yes Ian, as with half a hundred problems from road congestion, mental health, medical care, school places, leisure services, rubbish collection, ad infinitum the cause is too many people being encouraged to live in a place without jobs or hope. In my lifetime I have seen Caerffili turned from a nice town into a dump.
Yes absolutely, roundabouts are designed to keep traffic flowing, and they are a very effective gyratory traffic flow system when used correctly, problem is that the majority of motorists do not know how to negotiate a roundabout, they approach in the wrong lane for their exit and don’t bother to use their indicators once on the roundabout thus all other road users are forced to come to a grinding halt and wait to see where these half wits are going.
In England many forward thinking councils have seen the light and are removing traffic lights from roundabouts, backward looking Welsh councils are sadly still stuck firmly in the 1970’s.
Your assessment is correct Paul. What a waste of money, particularly as the extremely unwise house building frenzy will clog up this roundabout even more.