Warning: this is an old article (though anyone reading it in 2023 would be forgiven for thinking it is current).
Back in January signs went up on the Colwick Loop Road near the Victoria Retail Park. They were the standard “screw you” type much loved by Nottingham City/County Council, gleefully declaring that road works would commence on 19 January 2015 for 30 weeks. Naturally, delays were “expected”.
Well, for anyone who has been keeping count, 16 August marked the end of 30 weeks. As I write this, they are nearly two weeks behind, and judging from the temporary lights and rubble-strewn verges they still have several more weeks to go.
What was particularly irritating about these road works – other than the fact that they cut off yet another route into and out of the city – was the fact that the cones and speed restrictions went up at 8am on 19 January, and yet not a single piece of work took place on the Loop Road until the middle of April. So, we had to endure 15 weeks of traffic jams and rush hour delays for absolutely no benefit.
On the subject of benefit, Council’s road works website still doesn’t identify the purpose of these works. All it says is:
Nottinghamshire County Council is carrying out essential works in this area. This is to ensure that we provide a safe and reliable road network to our road users.
This is complete bollocks. The only purpose of these works is to give access to a new Sainsbury’s superstore which is being built on the industrial estate. The works are not “essential” and they are of virtually no benefit to the motorist. In fact, the additional junction on the Loop Road, the extra traffic, and the fact that the railway bridge can still only accommodate one lane of traffic each way all ensure that the motorist is going to get hammered once everything is finished.
I first heard what they were up to from a pupil whose husband worked for the Council. It seems to be common knowledge now, even if the Council is still trying to pretend otherwise. I came across official confirmation that they’re building a Sainsbury’s when I was using Open Street Maps to plot a GPS trace using my GPS tracker recently – the site is clearly labelled, as shown here in the large circle.
As an aside, you have to wonder at the mentality of Sainsbury’s board of directors. The company is suffering falling sales, and after 10 years of continuous growth they have suffered six consecutive quarterly falls in sales. They reportedly cannot compete any further with the price cutting specialists (Aldi and Lidl in particular). Yet here they are building an expensive new store within 500 metres of an M&S Foodhall, a Morrisons superstore, and a Lidl (marked by the smaller circles). They even have the resources to employ a bunch of graduates, who I saw being given the Grand Tour of the site a few months ago (though precisely what business the civil work on the other side of the road was of theirs is anyone’s guess).
But I digress. Another new feature of this development is a roundabout inside the industrial estate on Private Road No. 3 (to the lower left of the Sainsbury circle). It’s worth a special mention, given that it is just a few hundred metres away from the Colwick Test Centre.
Private Road No. 3 is a long, mainly straight, and fairly wide road which gives on to numerous industrial plots. These include BDF (Britain’s largest onshore drilling company), various recycling plants (household waste and building rubble), an aggregate supplier, several commercial vehicle repair companies, cement mixers/suppliers, two major fuel suppliers (it’s hard to miss those fuel tanks from the road), and numerous other companies operating supply and warehousing services. Oh, and the test centre, of course.
Apart from that last one, you don’t have to be a genius to realise what sort of traffic uses this road (I’ll give you a hint: 90% of it is long, heavy, and has more than six wheels) and Private Road No.3’s design – if not purposely made that way – has certainly attracted such businesses, Until Nottingham City and/or County Council stuck its oar in, that is.
BDF, Wastecycle, and all those other people who have operated large commercial vehicles out of the industrial estate for decades in order to ply their trades will no doubt be surprised to learn that they don’t need a straight road after all. Obviously, what they they really needed was a tight roundabout, about 10m across and offset from the line of the road, so that anyone using to continue along the road has to travel more than three-quarters of the way round its circumference, successively pointing at almost all points of the compass as they do. But hey! It’s Sainsbury’s, right? I guess that someone somewhere is going to be benefitting from all this, but it isn’t you or me as the motorist.
I don’t think anyone would be so stupid as to make this back entrance to the Sainsbury’s site one of the ways into its customer car park (I assume it will be for deliveries only), but I do think there are plenty of stupid people out there who shop at Sainsbury’s and who “get lost” often enough to end up trying it. And if they’re stupid enough to get in there in the first place, they will easily be stupid enough to cause further problems when they encounter the lorries they are holding up as they try to turn around.
Something else that isn’t immediately apparent (you can’t see it on the map above, but it’s there) is that to the lower right of the Sainsbury’s circle there is a cycle route which goes down to the river. As you approach the roundabout, the most obvious route (if you’re a cyclist) is anticlockwise on the roundabout – it’s about 80% shorter than doing it legally. Consider also that the major users of this cycle route are both cyclists and fishermen and you can easily see that the short route will be taken more frequently than the longer one.
Consider also that the kind of people who work at some of the places on the industrial estate. It helps if you know that they drive Audis, BMWs, and Corsas. For these people, speed limits are less than advisory, and Private Road No.3 is their own personal drag strip. I mention this simply because I’ve seen them going “the short way” already on weekend afternoons.
So there you have it. Another Council cock-up as far as overblown road works is concerned. And goodbye to another two simple routes, as they’re turned into convoluted junctions with yet more traffic lights.
One final thought. Don’t expect the “temporary” 30mph limit to go back to 40mph – especially not near the new Sainsbury’s junction. Even if it does, don’t expect it to stay there for very long after the first few serious accidents caused by dolts “getting confused” as they try to take their shopping home.