Residents have raised concerns about the safety of the recently opened roundabout on Spa Road and are urgently calling for road markings and clear signage to be installed.
The long-awaited roundabout opened in August following a two-year delay. However, now that it is open, residents have raised safety concerns, describing it as a ‘free-for-all’ resembling a ‘dodgems ride’ and are calling for road markings and signage to be put in place.
The roundabout, which is managed by Wiltshire Council, was built to facilitate traffic flow onto the new Melksham East relief road, which was expected to open when the roundabout was completed. However, the relief road has not yet opened, and residents have recently voiced their frustrations to Wiltshire Council over this delay.
One resident, Gary Fossey, an experienced driving instructor, warned that once the relief road opens, he can foresee a crash due to the confusion caused by the roundabout. He is also urging Wiltshire Council to ‘urgently’ install road markings and clear signage.
He said, “As a local professional driving instructor with 18 years’ experience, I can envisage many near misses, horns sounding and quite probably a crash once the Melksham East relief road is open.”
Another resident reported having witnessed an ‘incident’ at the roundabout involving two vehicles, one of which had a significant part of its front missing. He suggested that a single main roundabout would be ‘considerably safer.’
A local taxi driver, who has been driving in Melksham for 25 years, stated, “It is farcical in design; people have made mistakes and continue to do so. If someone mistakenly tries to go straight ahead while in the right-hand lane, there is no room for error. You can’t drive for 20 yards and then correct your lane; the space is so narrow that you risk cutting across and hitting the cars approaching from behind. It’s too much in too short a space, and they are too close together.
“I can’t imagine mass collisions because of the speed at which you approach the roundabout but I can imagine lots of dinks.
“Depending on which direction you’re travelling, both routes from Melksham to Bowerhill and Bowerhill to Melksham present different problems due to the roundabout being off-centre. It is going to cause issues. If you’re travelling from Melksham to Bowerhill and going straight on, you should be in the left-hand lane. However, because you have to bear left and artificially keep to the left, people aren’t doing this now, so when it opens, I think it’s going to be a significant problem.
Wiltshire Council was approached for comment on the safety concerns surrounding the Spa Road roundabout, but no response was received due to their ongoing censorship of the Melksham News.
