Plans to widen the A23 in West Sussex approved

[Spiros]

I'm also CPC and IAM qualified, and entirely used to driving at 80mph due to that being our motorway speed limit as well as a few thousand KM on autobahns. That section of road is whats unsafe...

If you're such a well-qualified driver then you should also know that there's no such thing as an unsafe road, only dangerous driving. After all, it's not the road that's exceeding the speed limit, is it? If you think the road is unsafe that is usually because you're going too fast.

 

[Lord Bracknell]

This scheme gets rid of all small exit roads and private driveways off the current main road, which are extremely dangerous on a 70 mph dual carriageway and puts them into a new seperate road to be built alongside.

The A23 will become 3 lane dualled, but much, much, safer as a result.

Undoubtedly safer for the traffic that will use it. But a proposal to build a new dual carriageway alongside an existing road will present problems if the old road is likely to remain busy and dangerous.

What killed off the proposals worked up in the early 1990s to build a new dual carriageway between Lewes and Polegate was that the plan was to prevent ANY access on to the new road from any of the villages that are served by the existing road. Since much of the peak-hour traffic that uses the A27 originates from places like Glynde, Firle, Ripe, Chalvington, Selmeston, Alciston, Alfriston, Seaford, Berwick and Wilmington, there was a need to keep a busy local road in parallel with the new one. And at Firle, where the Firle straight replaced a former (but still in use) alignment of the A27, the plan would have meant THREE parallel roads.

None of this went down very well. Especially when the traffic forecasts indicated that a high proportion of existing A27 users wouldn't be able to use the new dual carriageway and that the dangerous bits of the existing A27 would remain in use, just as dangerous, and still very busy. The scheme was then just abandoned by the Department for Transport as not worth the cost.

The A23 at Handcross may well be different. But they'll have to prove it or, at least, engineer they way through any issues that arise.

 

[Lord Bracknell]

Lord B will know better, but I think Brighton and Hove City Council takes over the A23 at the Patcham Roundabout.

Correct.

 

[Uncle Buck]

With the price of petrol still going up and the A23 going to be screwed for 3 years, looks like the train to work could be the best plan.

 

[Jahooli]

Why isn't the A24 on that map?
Part of it and the A27 share the same bit of road I think - between Broadwater and the next roundabout west.

 

[Superphil]

How the fcuk can it take THREE YEARS to put in another lane in for about a mile?

You haven't factored in the consultants work, at least a years worth of measuring.

Then don't forget the backlashes from the Sussex Wealdsmen, The Council for the Prevention of Rural England, The League against Anything Happening, miscellaneous bat fanciers, the children of Mile Oak, they all have to be factored in. I reckon it will take 5 years minimum before they even start.

 

[Brovion]

... , there was a need to keep a busy local road in parallel with the new one. And at Firle, where the Firle straight replaced a former (but still in use) alignment of the A27, the plan would have meant THREE parallel roads.

....

You see that's what I don't understand - what's wrong with three roads? They would all be serving different purposes; you would have had the 'proper' trunk road for the through traffic, the current single-lane one for the local traffic from the villages you mentioned and the old original alignment as effectively a private drive for the local houses etc.

As you say I'm sure all sorts of "Ah but ..." objections were put in the way and thus the scheme was scuppered. So people still get killed along the stretch by Virgina Woolf's gaff, and the best way from Portsmouth, Worthing or Brighton to Dover is via the M25.

 

[Lord Bracknell]

You see that's what I don't understand - what's wrong with three roads? They would all be serving different purposes; you would have had the 'proper' trunk road for the through traffic, the current single-lane one for the local traffic from the villages you mentioned and the old original alignment as effectively a private drive for the local houses etc.

As you say I'm sure all sorts of "Ah but ..." objections were put in the way and thus the scheme was scuppered. So people still get killed along the stretch by Virgina Woolf's gaff, and the best way from Portsmouth, Worthing or Brighton to Dover is via the M25.

Ah but ...

The real problem was that the design consultants came up with a proposal that was, in truth, over the top. Even the pro-road-building East Sussex County Council said so at the time. And this was when the Tory government was starting a fundamental rethink of transport policy and ministers like John Selwyn Gummer were turning a pale shade of green.

A more modest proposal - dualling the existing road and engineering some safe junctions - would almost certainly have worked and would have been accepted. Instead, the whole scheme was abandoned and what we have, twenty years later, is the same old problems, only more so.

Incidentally ... are there really large numbers of people who want to go from Portsmouth to Dover? Why?

 

[Brovion]

Ah but ...

The real problem was that the design consultants came up with a proposal that was, in truth, over the top. Even the pro-road-building East Sussex County Council said so at the time. And this was when the Tory government was starting a fundamental rethink of transport policy and ministers like John Selwyn Gummer were turning a pale shade of green.

A more modest proposal - dualling the existing road and engineering some safe junctions - would almost certainly have worked and would have been accepted. Instead, the whole scheme was abandoned and what we have, twenty years later, is the same old problems, only more so.

Incidentally ... are there really a large number of people who want to go from Portsmouth to Dover? Why?

I'm not so sure a more modest proposal would have been accepted as one should never underestimate the strength of the British Luddite tendency, but obviously, and sadly, we'll never know ...

Regarding Portsmouth to Dover, yes, I take your point as they could go to Le Harve and drive along the excellent French trunk roads, but assuming they got a better deal at Dover the best way of getting there is still to over-burden the M25. And I used to have to go to Germany and Holland a lot in the 1990s and it always seemed ridiculous that the quickest way was via the M25.

 

[Hunting 784561]

Undoubtedly safer for the traffic that will use it. But a proposal to build a new dual carriageway alongside an existing road will present problems if the old road is likely to remain busy and dangerous.

What killed off the proposals worked up in the early 1990s to build a new dual carriageway between Lewes and Polegate was that the plan was to prevent ANY access on to the new road from any of the villages that are served by the existing road. Since much of the peak-hour traffic that uses the A27 originates from places like Glynde, Firle, Ripe, Chalvington, Selmeston, Alciston, Alfriston, Seaford, Berwick and Wilmington, there was a need to keep a busy local road in parallel with the new one. And at Firle, where the Firle straight replaced a former (but still in use) alignment of the A27, the plan would have meant THREE parallel roads.

None of this went down very well. Especially when the traffic forecasts indicated that a high proportion of existing A27 users wouldn't be able to use the new dual carriageway and that the dangerous bits of the existing A27 would remain in use, just as dangerous, and still very busy. The scheme was then just abandoned by the Department for Transport as not worth the cost.

The A23 at Handcross may well be different. But they'll have to prove it or, at least, engineer they way through any issues that arise.

They are straightening and widening out the current 2 lane to 3 lane dual, and then putting in a new single lane access road alongside for all driveways and private roads.

The used the same model when the A23 was widend from Pease Pottage to Handcross about 10 years ago, and it works very well.

I smack my head in disbelief that the Polegate to Lewes A27 is still the way it is, a victim of some very muddled local thinking - and as a result it is an extremely dangerous road.

 

[Hunting 784561]

What would it take for it to become a motorway, of interest?

A new hard shoulder and a few more million quid thrown at it.

Not the trend anymore, many strategic cross country routes like the A14 ( Midlands-Felixstowe port) and A34 (Oxford -Southampton) are built to dual standard rather than full motorway, as it is by far the cheaper option.

 

[Cian]

Just the sort of snide comment i was on about.

I'd say the same about the US and Liberia, the only other countries that haven't accepted that the 1970s have happened yet measurement wise.

 

[KNC]

was hoping they'd build a f*** off big bridge...that'd be COOL!

Yeah, me too. A bit like the Pont De Normandie.

That would be FLAIR

 

[Djmiles]

About bloody time. The windy stretch up the hill after Handcross has always been a bitch.