Cutting out congestion

8:00am Thu Feb 02, 2012

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A campaign calling for the A612 to be downgraded from an A to a B road in a bid to deter lorries and end some of the Southwell’s traffic problems has been relaunched.

The town council is pushing for the move as a result of new legislation, due to come into force in April, which will mean county councils can downgrade roads without having to go through the Department for Transport.

The A612, which runs along Easthorpe, Church Street, Westgate and Nottingham Road, is often used by heavy goods vehicles, causing problems and congestion on the narrow Georgian streets.

The town council hopes, if the road is downgraded, it would reduce the number of heavy vehicles travelling through the town as it will no longer appear on sat navs as a more direct route from Newark to Nottingham.

Councillors hope the new legislation, combined with the dualling of the A46, will encourage the county council to make the A612 a B road.

Town council vice-chairman Mrs Beryl Prentice said the council had been campaigning for many years for the road to be downgraded.

She said: “Part of the problem is that it is down as a quicker route in people’s sat navs and unfortunately some lorry drivers use domestic sat navs rather than ones especially for HGVs so they get routed through Southwell. If we could get it down to a B road it would help reduce that problem.

“If we start pushing now, which we will start to do by reminding the county council that we have been asking for this for a very long time, hopefully we can get the road downgraded. This is a golden opportunity.”