Public meeting in Carlisle about Wigton Road resurfacing

A public meeting is being held on Thursday, 16th January, to give local people a chance to find out more about resurfacing works due to take place on Wigton Road later this month. 

Cumbria County Council has arranged the meeting at Wigton Road Methodist Church, between 6 and 7pm, to let people know what the planned works involve and provide an opportunity for them to express their opinions and put forward any suggestions on ways to minimise disruption. 

Councillor John Collier, Chairman of Carlisle Local Committee, says:   

"The works on Wigton road are essential but may cause some disruption. This is a residential area and also one of the main roads in to Carlisle. It is a very busy road and we know that problems can occur when roadworks are carried out. We wanted to give local people the chance to find out what we are planning and give them a chance to have their say on how we can best carry out the roadworks for residents and all road users." 

The Wigton Road works are one of three essential resurfacing schemes taking place in Carlisle over the coming months. Other works are taking place on Warwick Road and Brampton Road. Moves have been made to ensure that major works on each road, involving traffic signals, are not carried out at the same time, to keep disruption to an absolute minimum. 

The work on Wigton Road, from Bassenthwaite Street to Patridge Place, will be done in three phases. The first phase will be to take out the existing pedestrian islands and resurface outside Kwiksave. Phase two will involve relaying and putting in new kerbs and the last phase will be completing the rest of the resurfacing. 

The work on Warwick Road, which started this week, involves resurfacing from Broad Street to Lismore Place and is due to last for two to three weeks. The Wigton Road scheme is due to start on January 28th and last until March 10th but will not begin until the Warwick Road work is complete. 

The Brampton Road project, which involves resurfacing from the Near Boot to Longlands Road, is due to start once the first phase of Wigton Road resurfacing has been completed. This is to tie in with the kerb laying work on Wigton Road, which will not involve traffic lights. This has been done to avoid having traffic lights on two of Carlisle's major roads at one time to minimise disruption. Some of this work will also coincide with half term week, when the city centre roads are less busy. 

Councillor Collier said:   

"Carlisle Local Committee held a special meeting to discuss these roadworks. All the works had to be done before the end of this financial year, which meant that there was only a limited amount of time to carry them out. We have managed to arrange it so that we do not have traffic signals on more than one road at a time. The traffic lights on Wigton Road and Brampton Road will be manually controlled at all times, with 'look outs' at both ends. This will minimise disruption even further. I am sure that, despite all our efforts, there will be some disruption and we apologise for this. I ask that people bear with us while this essential maintenance work is carried out. The end result will be a better road surface for all road users."