Or rather, no answer to questions…. Prestwich Liberal Democrat councillor Michael Powell took the opportunity of written questions at the last meeting of Bury Council to ask about congestion on the A56 through Prestwich:

“Now that the A56 works in Prestwich are complete, could the Leader inform members what work, if any, is being undertaken to assess the long term impact of the scheme on other roads through Prestwich, or if a study to assess such any such impact is planned?”

And the answer from the Council:
“As part of the design of the Prestwich High Street scheme, extensive computer modelling was undertaken to understand the predicted traffic flows and the corresponding journey times between Hilton Lane and M60 Jnc 17. Recent monitoring has allowed an analysis of actual journey times to see how they compared against the predicted journey times. Other than the northbound evening peak (which is only around 55 seconds longer), there are no statistical significant changes to journey times.

Being a principal road and a gateway to the motorway network, traffic flows will always be significant on the A56 in Prestwich. As explained previously, an area-wide study to capture a multitude of side-roads and alternate routes, would cost between £10k and 20k. As there is no evidence that the scheme has had a detrimental impact on journey times, no budget has been allocated to this work.”

Our experience, and the experience of many residents, is very different , with long queues through long parts of the day, particularly north from Hilton Lane and this congestion then spreads throughout Prestwich.

Let us know what you think!

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