Traffic gridlock will get worse in Keswick this summer, a councillor has warned, because a pedestrian crossing is to be installed just yards from the town’s busiest junction.
Premier Inn, which is developing the 71-bed hotel site, was required to agree a puffin crossing with highways authority Cumbria County Council as part of the deal.
But Keswick town councillors say the planned location — 119 Main Street, close to the Crosthwaite Parish Rooms and next to the Lakes & Dales Co-operative — is the wrong place as it is too near the busy roundabout where traffic from Keswick meets traffic from the west and Borrowdale.
Puffin crossings use kerbside sensors to detect when pedestrians have crossed and keep traffic on red lights until they have done so .
Previously, Keswick Town Council called for the crossing to be moved further away from that area – suggesting nearer the school or the garage – but say that has been ignored.
Providing a crossing point was a key condition of Whitbread winning approval from the Lake District National Park Authority to develop the site at the former Ravensfield Care Home, complete with restaurant and bar.
At the time of the decision in November 2020, the LDNPA required the developers to provide a puffin crossing on the “A5271 between the Coleridge Court junction and the Co-op access”.
The town council wrote to the LDNPA asking for that condition to be amended so that the crossing did not add to congestion.
Councillor Allan Daniels, a member of the town council and deputy mayor of Allerdale, said the latest plan amounted to disregarding local opinion.
Cllr Daniels said temporary traffic lights had been in the same location last summer and it had led to queuing motorists, with the situation aggravated by the proximity of the roundabout.
Cllr Daniels said: “We had said very clearly, as Keswick Town councillors, that a puffin crossing by the Co-op would be detrimental as traffic easily gets jammed-up there. We would prefer the crossing to be moved further down the road and nearer the school or the garage.
“There is already a traffic island further up the road and it would make more sense to put it there. It is going to go in the wrong place as far as we are concerned.”
During the summer, the temporary lights in the same area saw motorists backed up as far as Crosthwaite Road in one direction, and as far as Bell Close car park in the other, he said, with traffic queues also building on Tithebarn Street towards Booths, and the road to Borrowdale.
Cllr Daniels said: “The county council really needs to consult with Keswick Town Council and the people of Keswick.”
