City centre traffic ban

City centre traffic ban

No way through: Traffic is diverted as work continues on inner ring road

By Richard Marsden
CITY centre workers and residents are to be hit by a series of road closures, lane restrictions and bus gates following the completion of Sheffield's £56million inner ring road.
Plans seen by The Star show the changes will take place between West Bar, The Wicker and Park Square roundabout once the route opens in the summer.

Sheffield Council said it wants to ban through-traffic from the area being bypassed - but the restrictions will mean lengthy detours for people who live and work in the northern half of the city centre.

A major motoring organisation has warned that forcing all through-traffic to use the inner ring road without providing additional cross-city routes will not solve the gridlock problem.

The new road also features about 50 per cent more sets of traffic lights than the old routes it is replacing.

Sheffield Conservative councillor Mike Waters said he feared the council is creating "another Woodseats" - the notorious £2 million traffic management scheme on the A61 blamed for increased delays in the suburb.

Simon Botterill, Sheffield Council team manager for traffic management, said the council wants to keep through traffic away from inside the new inner ring road so the city centre can be expanded into the Wicker and Riverside areas.

He added: "The aim of the ring road is there should be no through-traffic in the city centre, which is a policy of many cities across Europe."

But Neil Greig, assistant director of the Institute of Advanced Motorists Motoring Trust, said: "Where ring roads are very successful, for example in France and Germany, they are fully dual carriageway with multi-level junctions so traffic is free flowing. But a key difference between the UK and Europe is the standard of British ring roads is often a mish-mash of single and dual carriageways, so they do not work so well. If you can provide additional cross-city routes that keep traffic away from pedestrians, there should be some to provide extra capacity."

Mr Greig said that for Sheffield's ring road to keep flowing and not grind to a halt the council must ensure incidents such as collisions and breakdowns are dealt with very quickly and faulty traffic signals are repaired "immediately".

He warned that Sheffield Council should not make driving around the city centre "too difficult" or it will harm its attractiveness to businesses.

Lib Dem councillor Shaffaq Mohammed, who sits on the Netherthorpe, Walkley and Hillsborough panel which covers part of the new inner ring road route, said: "These restrictions should be looked at again before they go ahead.

"Just saying to people 'we know best' is not the answer.