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THEY'RE changing the road direction
signs in Nantwich, causing confusion to visiting
motorists and anger to some residents who suddenly find themselves
living on roads which have become major route for heavy vehicles.
The picture above arose for
just a few days when a new sign (on the left) was erected in Beam Street and
before the old one (on the right) was removed. True, a further sign
at the junction still sends Chester and Wrexham-bound traffic to the
left - place names missed from the larger sign above.
And still in place (still
there in July) is the old smaller sign (right) which sends traffic
to the right to get to Crewe - contrary to the instructions on the
new sign.
But now, the preferred route
to Crewe would appear to be
to the left along the A532 (with a turn off further ahead).
Preferred, that is, by the highways
authorities, at this point in Nantwich. Elsewhere in town motorists
are sent to Crewe via a completely different route.
The new route from Beam Street takes motorists to Crewe via
the "back door". By that I mean that I have always thought of the
A534 as the main way into Crewe.
Note that Congleton is now
listed as to the left - but it is shown as via the A534, the
shortest route to which is to the right.
The reason for all this - I
am guessing - is that the road to the right is along a,
currently, busy road on
which there are parking problems. Residents cannot get access to the
rear of their houses and so park on the road. Perhaps the
authorities are trying to keep the road less busy - or at least with
fewer lorries travelling on it. But they are thwarting their efforts
because, as I write this, a small sign (right) across the junction
still sends traffic to Crewe along the A51 on to the A534 to
the right. (See this update).
A bugbear of mine
when I drive through towns that I haven't visited before is when the
place I am trying to find just disappears from the signposts. Of course,
that might not always be due to the work of the people who design
the signs. Nantwich is currently plagued by fools who delight in
turning the signs to point in the wrong direction - quickly turning
them the wrong way again when the highway authorities realign them.
Maybe other towns suffer in the same way.
THE new signs started to appear last
month - just after Cheshire East Council took over from the now
defunct Cheshire Council - but I understand this is not down to the
new authority and that the signs were on the cards at least two
years ago.
It doesn't help that the
work on replacing the signs appears to have come to a halt for the
moment. A few yards on from the signs at the top of the page there
is still an old sign sending drivers to the right to get to Crewe.
Perhaps I am working
against the highways authority's cunning plans by revealing the more direct route to
Crewe. But the strange goings-on cannot be ignored.
IN another part of
Nantwich, motorists are sent all round the houses to get to Crewe by
yet another route, directed to the right by a sign at a junction
where the "old" route was straight on (right). Again, this might be to keep
traffic off a narrow street which saw a double fatality a couple of
years ago.
But the problem here is
that a
 new sign
(seen left)directs motorists to Crewe along the A532 (actually
in completely the opposite direction) with the fourth sign along this
route (below, left) saying the way to Crewe is via the A5020. The road
hasn't changed, just the signage (as it's now called).
That's
the road where local
residents are up in arms about more vehicles travelling on their
route - endangering their children, they say.
Note the inclusion of the
route number A530 (with no destination) in the "straight ahead" list
on the road sign. As
the lower destination direction shows, the A530 is to the right. Audlem is
straight on and so the A529
doesn't need brackets (which
indicate a non-direct route). The answer is that Wellington Road is
part of the winding A530 which continues for the very short distance to the Park Road junction
(below). So the sign
designers have pedantically listed it.
At that junction the
route ahead becomes the A529. That accounts for the "Audlem (A529)"
listing - brackets indicating that you are not on the A529 at the
moment! I always thought that information on a road sign
applied to the junction ahead - an early warning - and not to the
spot where the road sign actually stood.
BACK to the "Crewe (A5020)"
instruction. That really is a route
that goes all round the houses. To reach the A5020, which is several
miles from
Nantwich, you have to travel along the A500 towards Stoke-on-Trent (are you still following
this?) and along that road two of the signs don't mention the A5020
or Crewe.
Instead drivers find themselves directed to Stoke-on-Trent.
Strangers must feel they have gone badly wrong somewhere.
Fortunately, the A5020 to
Crewe is signposted again long before the Staffordshire potteries
town is reached.
I recently travelled this route -
with which I am very familiar and so no moments of panic for me -
following the road signs. I also had a sat-nav with me.
The female voice was giving completely different directions,
programmed as she was to go the old way. With each "wrong" turn, the
sat-nav quietly reprogrammed "herself" and tried again.
I was eventually taken to
Crewe Station and told I had reached my destination. Well, I was
on the road I had keyed into the sat-nav, but at completely the wrong
end of it and nowhere near Crewe town centre where I had been
heading for the purposes of the test.
The sign on the left shows the Crewe
route as the A534 (with Wrexham) which, in my book, is the correct
way. However, this sign stands in Peter de Stapleigh Way (at the Pear
Tree Field junction) - where all
other road signs are sending drivers along the A5020 to Crewe. An
"error" on someone's part with this particular sign has, in fact,
produced a correct piece of information! Wrexham has always
been signed
"(A534)".
NANTWICH has been plagued
by heavy lorries passing through the town - I'm not talking about
those who deliver goods to Nantwich retail outlets - and so maybe the
signs people are doing their best to stop this. You can, of course,
guide lorries one way and cars - less of a problem - another way by
imposing weight limits to keep the lorries off the problem routes.
Maybe it will all turn out
all right the end. Sadly, people who live on the new routes, which
weren't quite so busy a while back, will have to learn to live with
a problem previously affecting only others.
There are roads in Nantwich
where historic buildings were having their foundations shaken and
the buildings were in danger of collapsing. Road
calming has been introduced to Welsh Row, for instance. So that road is spared now, but
it's no consolation to residents on the new
routes.
THE A530:
The current road signage is not the first confusion in this town.
When the roads were allocated their "A numbers" the roads people had
a problem. The A530 road which had brought traffic from Middlewich
to town met the Stone-to-Chester road (the A51 - and that number
took precedence). A couple of hundred yards further on, Beam Street
(which is off the A51 to the right) is the A530 again. The numbering
continues along The Waterlode (inner ring road) and on to Wellington
Road - all round town and virtually turning left or right at every
junction. Then, as I said above, the A530 turns right into Park Road
and heads for Whitchurch, after bearing left at the very next
junction . . .
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