In July 2014 Rotherham Council decided to spend £225,000 of their Local Transport Plan funding on improving Rotherway Roundabout [council approval document]
Earlier this year it became clear that the costs had risen to £275,000 and that the funding source had been switched to the Local Sustainable Transport Fund [LSTF final spend document]
A significant queue frequently forms on the A630 West Bawtry Road approach to the Rotherway roundabout in the evening peak period and at times this queue can be 600m long. This queue causes delay to traffic using the A630 and also causes issues with some drivers using an adjacent service road at inappropriate speed to cut out some of the queue.
Consideration of the practicalities of the free flow and widening options shows that the preferred scheme is to widen the A631 West Bawtry Road approach from Canklow entry to the Rotherway roundabout and it is recommended that this scheme is progressed to detailed design and implementation.
It is expected that by reducing the length of queues on the A630 West Bawtry Road entry to the Rotherway roundabout that traffic queues and delay would be reduced and that, together with the recently introduced traffic calming, would mean that drivers would no longer use the service road.
This was approved along with the preliminary design below.
You can see on Streetview the construction works of the approach widening and the roundabout widening. There was already a shared use footway at the edge, that hasn’t been changed.
This is what it looks like now. Is this a good way to spend £275,000 of LSTF money? I don’t think so!
