News: New York Junction opens in Rotherham
A £5m road improvement scheme on the edge of Rotherham town centre has reached completion.
£3.4m was secured in 2013 from the government's £190m Local Pinch Point Fund to convert Pool Green roundabout (Liquid roundabout) on the edge of the town centre into signalised crossroads.
The junction of A630 Centenary Way and Main Street experienced significant congestion and the Council has previously investigated options to improve the capacity of the junction in order to improve journey time reliability and reduce delay.
Now known as New York Junction, the new section of road became fully operational by Sunday July 5.
Pedestrian crossing facilities have replaced the subways and new landscaping schemes, including 32 new trees and 40,000 bulbs, will also be planted to help enhance the ecology of the area.
The scheme had to be redesigned after traffic surveys revealed a significant increase in flow at the junction since the previous surveys in 2010, which were used to develop the original design for the Pinch Point Scheme.
The scheme involves the widening of the busy Centenary Way to three lanes as it approaches the new junction. However, to keep the traffic flowing, vehicles wishing to turn right from Centenary Way towards either Masbrough or the town centre will now need to go straight ahead at the crossroads, use the signal controlled U-Turn facilities within the wide central reservation to come back on themselves, and then turn left at the crossroads.
The right turn from Masbrough Street onto Centenary Way has been retained.
Along with Government funding, the Council also secured a European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) grant of £1.16m towards the scheme. Funding was also used via a section 106 agreement for Rotherham United's New York Stadium and the Local Transport Plan. The Council also used its borrowing powers to secure £408,000.
Cllr. Denise Lelliott, Advisory Cabinet Member for Housing and the local economy at Rotherham Council, said: "We'd like to thank everyone for their patience whilst these works have taken place.
"Traffic movement through Rotherham town centre towards the M1, as well as allowing greater access to the town centre, will be greatly enhanced because of the scheme and we're hopeful that motorists will see the benefits almost immediately."
The scheme has removed the barriers currently restricting the development at important sites such as the New York Stadium, the Guest & Chrimes site, Forge Island, Liquid nightclub and the wider town centre.
The improvements are also expected to have a significant impact on unlocking Rotherham's "urban extension" at Bassingthorpe Farm where the council hopes that 2,400 new residential homes and 11 hectares of employment land will be located.
Development plots on the west side of the junction would also be created, which would be in the Council's ownership, and offer a future capital receipt, which initial views suggest could be worth up to £600k.
Eurovia Contracting North completed the work and the contractors used the project as a pilot to test the CEEQUAL standard, an awards scheme for civils work based on hard evidence of a project's environmental quality, economic and social impacts.
Eurovia is on programme with another Rotherham pinch point scheme – the £3m abutment repairs to Old Flatts Bridge on the Parkway.
Eurovia website
Rotherham Council website
Images: Lewis Broughton / Eurovia
£3.4m was secured in 2013 from the government's £190m Local Pinch Point Fund to convert Pool Green roundabout (Liquid roundabout) on the edge of the town centre into signalised crossroads.
The junction of A630 Centenary Way and Main Street experienced significant congestion and the Council has previously investigated options to improve the capacity of the junction in order to improve journey time reliability and reduce delay.
Now known as New York Junction, the new section of road became fully operational by Sunday July 5.
Pedestrian crossing facilities have replaced the subways and new landscaping schemes, including 32 new trees and 40,000 bulbs, will also be planted to help enhance the ecology of the area.
The scheme had to be redesigned after traffic surveys revealed a significant increase in flow at the junction since the previous surveys in 2010, which were used to develop the original design for the Pinch Point Scheme.
The scheme involves the widening of the busy Centenary Way to three lanes as it approaches the new junction. However, to keep the traffic flowing, vehicles wishing to turn right from Centenary Way towards either Masbrough or the town centre will now need to go straight ahead at the crossroads, use the signal controlled U-Turn facilities within the wide central reservation to come back on themselves, and then turn left at the crossroads.
The right turn from Masbrough Street onto Centenary Way has been retained.
Along with Government funding, the Council also secured a European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) grant of £1.16m towards the scheme. Funding was also used via a section 106 agreement for Rotherham United's New York Stadium and the Local Transport Plan. The Council also used its borrowing powers to secure £408,000.
Cllr. Denise Lelliott, Advisory Cabinet Member for Housing and the local economy at Rotherham Council, said: "We'd like to thank everyone for their patience whilst these works have taken place.
"Traffic movement through Rotherham town centre towards the M1, as well as allowing greater access to the town centre, will be greatly enhanced because of the scheme and we're hopeful that motorists will see the benefits almost immediately."
The scheme has removed the barriers currently restricting the development at important sites such as the New York Stadium, the Guest & Chrimes site, Forge Island, Liquid nightclub and the wider town centre.
The improvements are also expected to have a significant impact on unlocking Rotherham's "urban extension" at Bassingthorpe Farm where the council hopes that 2,400 new residential homes and 11 hectares of employment land will be located.
Development plots on the west side of the junction would also be created, which would be in the Council's ownership, and offer a future capital receipt, which initial views suggest could be worth up to £600k.
Eurovia Contracting North completed the work and the contractors used the project as a pilot to test the CEEQUAL standard, an awards scheme for civils work based on hard evidence of a project's environmental quality, economic and social impacts.
Eurovia is on programme with another Rotherham pinch point scheme – the £3m abutment repairs to Old Flatts Bridge on the Parkway.
Eurovia website
Rotherham Council website
Images: Lewis Broughton / Eurovia
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