Roadworks leave Burnley in gridlock

The various works, being conducted on main routes through the town, all in the same period, have added a huge amount of time to journey times and long traffic jams.

Lancashire County Council is responsible for three of the four main projects currently being carried out – on Trafalgar Street, the Barracks roundabout, near to Gannow, and the M65.

A fourth big project, in Accrington Road, is electrical utility works.

Road users, who commute into Burnley town centre from outlying areas of town, say the works have added up to an hour on their journey times.

One said: “It is absolutely ridiculous that all these jobs are being done at the same time.

“You would have thought there would have been some kind of communication at the highways authority so we didn’t have this total gridlock.”

But a spokesman for Lancashire County Council said work has started over the last few weeks to coincide with the school summer holidays, and urged motorists to be patient.

Michael White, street works manager for Lancashire County Council, said: “We understand it can feel frustrating for motorists when there is more than one set of roadworks in their town at the same time.

“We have very little or no control over some works, such as when a utilities company has to carry out urgent repairs.

“We do think carefully about when to carry out works and sometimes we coincide them at times when there is less traffic, such as during the school summer holidays.

“We’d ask the residents of Burnley to bear with us and hope they’ll find the road improvements are worth any short delays during this period.”

The Express reported in July that work was starting to improve the standard of safety barriers between Junctions 10 and 12 on the M65, while work is still under way to install traffic lights in Westway, near the approach to Gannow roundabout.

The M65 work is scheduled to be completed around the end of December.

Work began at Junction 12, progressing to Junction 10 along the westbound carriageway, before returning along the eastbound side.