Red alert on Stratford roads with long traffic queues and HGVs still ending up on narrow residential streets
IT was red alert across Stratford this morning (Wednesday) as traffic queues formed along Stratford’s main routes right across town.
Severn Meadows Road and Trinity Way were particularly bad – the morning rush-hour traffic on Trinity Way was backed up to the roundabout with Wordsworth Avenue (the Co-op roundabout).
And traffic entering the town centre from Banbury Road and Tiddington Road had to contend with a large, wheeled bin in the road after it had fallen off the back of a lorry.
Warwickshire Police were in attendance and had coned off part of Banbury Road at the Junction of Shipston Road. That obstruction was soon cleared as the lorry driver – helped by an officer – tipped the bin back on its wheels and pushed it out of the way.
Today is the third day of five months of roadworks on Warwick Road, Stratford, which has closed the route to vehicles heading out of town towards the M40.
Traffic is instead being directed up Guild Street and the Birmingham Road, or over the Alcester Road, and out to the A46.
Warwick Road remains open to traffic entering Stratford from the east.
Teething problems with diversion signs by the gyratory in Stratford have seen HGVs end up on narrow, residential streets including Great William Street where two cars were damaged.
Warwickshire County Council’s teams have made changes to the signs, including removing one that diverted drivers up Welcombe Road. They have also used cones to narrow one lane of the Warwick Road near the Grosvenor Hotel to deter HGVs from heading towards the road closure in the hope they will drive around the gyratory and back up Guild Street.
The council is also having ‘No HGV’ signs made to help lorry drivers avoid a repeat of Monday’s and Tuesday’s chaos with lorries getting stuck in Great Williams Street and residents having to move their cars and help drivers through narrow gaps and into Guild Street.
However, it is obvious that the changes are not working as residents of Great William Street reported this morning that more HGVs have been getting stuck on their road.
