Extensive and controversial roadworks in the Shanklin area – which have plagued motorists with delays of up to an hour – are set to be paused by Island Roads.
Heavy traffic has been an almost daily occurance between Lake and Shanklin as resurfacing and repair works closed Languard Road. Concurrently, temporary traffic lights at Skew Bridge to facilitate repair and renovation works have also been adding to the drama alongside the partial closure of The Broadway in Sandown.
Highways contractor Island Roads has revealed that it is pausing the second phase of the Languard Road works until the completion of the Skew Bridge works and the subsequent removal of the associated temporary traffic lights.
In the meantime, these lights will be operated manually by Island Roads staff to help ease congestion between the hours of 15:00 and 17:00.
An Island Roads spokesperson said:
“We are aware of congestion on routes linking Lake and Shanklin – particularly when schools traffic is on the roads – and we have taken steps to improve the situation. In order to keep traffic moving, we are now manually operating the temporary traffic lights at Skew Footbridge between 15:00 and 17:00, Monday to Friday.
“We have also changed our schedule so the next phase of the Landguard Road reconstruction will not take place until the Skew Bridge lights have been removed (June 21). Coupled with the onset of half-term, we are hopeful the situation will improve as a result of this action.
“While the improvement of Landguard Road and the refurbishment of Skew Bridge are our projects, the current situation has been exacerbated by nearby work from other utility companies including work on Lake Hill.
Article continues below this advertisement “We do plan our work to minimise disruption. Landguard Road has been scheduled for the window early in the year when we would usually expect favourable weather and before the main holiday season. The same is true of the Skew Bridge work, but the project has been complicated by the need to co-ordinate our work with the requirements of the railway authorities who are also working to improve their infrastructure.
“We do apologise for any inconvenience our work is causing but hope short term issues will be offset by the long term benefits of upgrading this important road and refurbishing Skew footbridge.”
Not about these works but it seems the rules don’t apply to SSEN who decided to dig up the road then leave a job half done in Yarmouth then pack up and bog off leaving 3 way lights that everyone seems to be ignoring and backing the ferry traffic up then buses stopping directly on a stop that in close to the lights which causes traffic behind to over take and head off on coming traffic, very ill managed and all this on a Bank Holiday weekend. yes I’ve tried to contact SSEN but you get thrown round in circles island roads and southern vectis are useless so gave up. If your heading to the west wight be warned its chaos in Yarmouth at times.
Island roads couldn’t organise anything as the right hand doesn’t know what the left hand is doing. All utilities have to seek permits to close roads for maintenance repairs etc so island roads knew about skew bridge and still permitted languard road closure at the same time, How rediculous, took me over an hour to get from shanklin to lake the other day and an emergency vehicle leaving green lane took almost 10 mins to get to lake traffic lights due to total road grid lock. Island Roads need to employ a co-ordinator that one knows the islands routes, and 2 has more than a single brain cell. why wasn’t it done during lockdown.