A585 Windy Harbour bypass has failed and requires 'drastic surgery' says highways campaigner

The multi-million pound A585 Windy Harbour Bypass was built to ease congestion issues | National World

A multi-million pound bypass road hailed as the answer to chronic congestion between Fleetwood and the M55 junction at Kirkham has been labelled a ‘failure’ by a road campaigner and needs ‘radical surgery’.

The completion of the much-anticipated A585 Windy Harbour to Skippool bypass was marked with a celebration event with the various partners last August.

MPs, civic dignitaries and invited guests joined the team behind the scheme, built around the village of Little Singleton, which is aimed at reducing congestion, improving safety and removing a major bottleneck between the M55 junction at Kirkham and Fleetwood.

The ambitious project involved 50 different companies, included three bridges, 18 miles of traffic signal cabling and boosted biodiversity with 72,000 trees and shrubs planted.

However, Thornton resident Mark Owens, who last year called for a public meeting about the bypass, says it has not delivered on its remit and has possibly made things even worse.

Mr Owens said: "This project has merely shifted the congestion along as shown by the traffic maps.

“There are still issues of congestion at the M55 junction 3 and also the single stretch between Windy Harbour and the M55 where incredibly it was decided by NH to spend circa 800k to install average speed cameras

"There can be no escaping the fact that this project has failed in the evening peak traffic times, something the project was supposed to deal with. There's Massive congestion far exceeding the original length of congestion at LittleSingleton, when the A585 was using Mains Lane.

“This will only get worse as more houses as per Wyre Councils local plan, are occupied

."Radical surgery is needed to fix this project, otherwise we are facing a terrible waste of millions of pounds along with all the inconvenience. A complete review of this project and a holistic review of the A585 from Fleetwood to the Motorway must be undertaken with a view to improve journey times and safety.

“It was obvious this project was deeply flawed from the start and this perverse piecemeal approach which only creates additional problems."

Mr Owens also raised concern about the revamped Norcross Roundabout, which was redesigned to include traffic lights.

He said: “The changes to the Norcross roundabout have resulted in a massive increase in accidents due to confusing lanes, something that NH have recognised and now intend to fix, albeit after public and political pressure.”

National Highways has been approached for a response.

The government-owned company previously stated that the road was proving affective.

Tom Peckitt, National Highways Project Manager, said last August of the project’s merits: “This scheme is the culmination of a lot of hard work which is already resulting in vastly improved journeys.

“The three miles of new road added around the village of Little Singleton has brought much-needed capacity to deliver smoother, safer and more reliable journeys for everyone.”