With the jury still out on whether South Gloucestershire Council’s (SGC’s) recent £4.2m scheme to improve the Aztec West Roundabout and A38 has actually made matters worse, the council is already at the early planning stage of its next major roundabout improvement scheme, this time at the other end of Bradley Stoke Way.
The new scheme is intended to increase capacity at Great Stoke Roundabout (a.k.a. Rabbit Roundabout) as part of a package of investments to support the Filton Enterprise Area and the Cribbs/Patchway New Neighbourhood (CPNN).
An initial £550k of funding was allocated to the project last November by the West of England Combined Authority (WECA), for the purpose of developing a business case. A report submitted ahead of that funding award stated that the project is expected to cost a total of £4.7m, including development and construction costs.
Topographical and ground penetrating radar surveys were due to be carried out around Great Stoke Roundabout as we went to press.
A council spokesperson explained:
“The project will be designed to reduce traffic congestion and improve journey times and reliability (for cars as well as for MetroBus and other bus services). By reducing journey times we will reduce emissions. We also hope to make improvements for pedestrians and cyclists.”
“We have allocated £550k to the feasibility assessments and pre-construction planning, which is expected to take place by spring 2020. At the end of these processes we will be able to calculate the full project cost and the council will seek funding for the later phases and construction of the project through grants.”
“Public consultation on the project will begin in August 2018, with project completion expected in the winter of 2022.”
Further details revealed in the WECA report are that the resultant reconfigured roundabout is likely to be a three-lane circulatory system, including a segregated left-turn slip from Winterbourne Road east and three-lane entry from Winterbourne Road west.
The report notes that any proposed construction start date will be “subject to the ability to occupy the network, depending on other programmed works” such as the Cribbs Patchway MetroBus Extension and Gipsy Patch Lane railway bridge replacement (currently scheduled to start in October 2019).
This article originally appeared in the May 2018 issue of the Bradley Stoke Journal news magazine (on page 3). The magazine is delivered FREE, EVERY MONTH, to ALL 8,700 homes in Bradley Stoke. Phone 01454 300 400 to enquire about advertising or leaflet insertion.
UPDATE (4th March 2019)
SGC has now launched a public consultation on the proposed scheme:
The consultation runs until 29th March 2019
Discussion about this article on the BSJ Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/BradleyStokeJournal/posts/1860074517376049
While it’s nice to see that SGC are improving Rabbit roundabout, what I think would be a great idea is to re-instate the rabbits that gave the roundabout it’s name.
They mysteriously disappeared some years ago, in a reply to a freedom of information request SGC denied any knowledge of how and why the rabbits disappeared.