After months of disruption at Downend, permanent traffic lights are expected to be back in operation from February, Island Roads has confirmed.
The signal control box was damaged beyond repair in a collision last September, marking the second such incident at the site in the last 20 months.
Since then, 3-way temporary lights have been in place at the junction, leading to lengthy delays and regular tailbacks across The Downs.
On numerous occasions throughout the last 4 months, the temporary traffic lights have also gone down.
Island Echo was told back in November that it would be ‘several more weeks’ until the lights would be fixed, but that it would be done before the New Year.
Island Roads has now confirmed that a new control box will be installed during the first week of February, finally bringing the full light system back into operation.
A spokesperson for Island Roads has said:
“We are pleased to confirm that the replacement control box is due to be installed during the first week of February.
Article continues below this advertisement “We appreciate the temporary lights have been in place for a while. This is because the new control box has had to be made specifically for this location which extended the lead in time.
“We would like to thank the community for their understanding while temporary lights have been in place.”
Sad and pathetic..
Why does everything take so long on the island to do.
Just bring a professional team from the mainland over
job done.
Numpty Roads don’t know what they are doing.
It’s only a three way junction that needs redesigning anyway! Where is the new control box going to be sited? Has the time we have been waiting been used to reroute the wiring so it can be put in a safer place? Spare parts might be a good idea for the next time.
exactly
but I bet they haven’t …. that would take a brain cell (which it seems they don’t have)
The trouble with living in a third world country, have to wait for the camels to traverse the silkroad with spares from China.
Why has this taken so long ??? Every time I went passed I didn’t see any work taking place, all this building & extra cars is going to make the future of roads on the Island an unimaginable nightmare can nobody see that ???????
There are too many vehicles on this small island.
So, a full 5 months to repair a traffic light control box. Do you think this delay would be acceptable if it was on the mainland?
Surely we have skilled labour on the Island that can manufacture a traffic light control box with associated wiring?
Or, as I suspect, the firm that Island Roads ‘has’ to use is a preferred supplier (i.e. a rip off company that saw Island Roads coming and happily convinced them that they were the only ones that could do the work)
Hopefully, Island Roads will have taken the last 5 months to move the position of the control box, if it seems to be a hazard to drivers!