A road diversion in Plympton which has gone on for nearly four and a half years and which has been the bane of the haulage industry and locals alike is finally at an end following the completion of repairs to a weakened bridge over the railway at Cot Hill.
The bridge, which dates back to the 1920s, underwent a routine safety inspection at the end of 2017 and it was found that there was corrosion in the metalwork. As a result the bridge was deemed no longer suitable to carry vehicles in excess of 7.5 tonnes and an emergency traffic order was implemented from 5 January 2018 banning heavy goods vehicles from the bridge.
To accommodate the closure of the bridge to HGVs a temporary diversion was established to allow such vehicles to exit from Valley Road onto Plymouth Road via Linketty Lane. This involved appreciable extra mileage for HGVs wanting to go to Cornwall or other parts of Plymouth for their next delivery as such vehicles were diverted to Deep Lane End and back down the A38 to Marsh Mills to go to their next destinations.
It was also an inconvenience to locals as the closure of Linketty Lane to other traffic cut off a main access route into Merafield and created extra displaced traffic in Underwood village and Market Road.
At one stage a temporary bridge over the existing one at Cot Hill was considered. In the event the temporary overbridge never came to fruition and neither did another option which was considered, a permanent replacement bridge with more than one lane. In May 2018 a new Labour administration took over the running of the council and it was subsequently announced that they would pursue things with Network Rail on the basis of strengthening the existing structure.
Complaints throughout the past four and half years about improper use of the bridge by HGVs and traffic other than HGVs using Linketty Lane were frequent. When complaints were made in late 2018 that non HGVs were also using Linketty Lane as an exit route out of the area, creating longer waiting times for traffic on Plymouth Road, the council was forced to concede that the HGV use only was advisory and that the traffic order which had been implemented to allow HGVs to use the road did not restrict the types of vehicle which could use the diversion.
In February 2019 the council moved to plug this loophole and subsequently implemented a revised traffic order so it could enforce the HGV only use of the one way system in Linketty Lane.
Complaints were also made at intervals during the near four and a half year ban on HGVs using the Cot Hill bridge that some HGV drivers were ignoring the ban and still using it. This led to one major company at the centre of the allegation launching an enquiry into its delivery drivers’ use of the bridge.
At one stage residents wondered if the bridge would ever get repaired, especially when in January 2019 it was announced by the then Labour administration that the mobile traffic lights at the Linketty Lane/Plymouth Road junction would be replaced with fixed semi-permanent ones.
In May 2021 Network Rail finally announced that they planned to proceed with the bridge repair in February 2022, that the work would be carried out over four weekends and that the bridge would be back open again in March this year.
By late December 2021 this plan had changed and it was announced the work would be brought forward to start in January but would take much longer as a funding agreement had now been reached with the council to repair the bridge to a standard that would take a 44 tonne weight. The announcement indicated that once the repairs started the road would be subject to a continuous closure and not expected to re-open again until mid-April.
The work eventually got underway but there was an outcry from local motorists when they learnt that the official diversion route would take them out to Elburton and back along the Embankment and in via Marsh Mills to reach other areas of Plympton. Unsurprisingly few motorists were willing to follow such a convoluted diversion and on the first day of the bridge closure there was traffic chaos in Underwood village and Market Road which motorists chose to use as shortcuts.
This resulted in an online petition being set up calling for the Linketty Lane HGV diversion to now be opened up to all traffic. The council promptly relented and allowed all vehicle types to use that diversion while the bridge was undergoing its repair.
Initially the official route for traffic using this diversion and wanting to go west was to do a U-turn at the St Mary’s mini-roundabout but this also brought its own degree of chaos and near misses. This diversion was later changed to direct westbound traffic to go along Glen Road, up Moorland Road and then along Mudge Way and back down Ridgeway.
A further set-back occurred when Network Rail announced the bridge would not re-open on 19 April as bad weather had delayed the progress of the work. Finally however the bridge re-opened to all traffic on May 20, much to the joy of local motorists. One resident summed up the view of many when she posted on social media
“I actually felt euphoric when I saw this.”
There was an equal feeling of joy in the area when Linketty Lane reverted to its original status of being an exit off Plymouth Road into Valley Road and wider areas of Merafield. There has however been some concern that a few motorists do not seem to have realised the change and now travel the wrong way in the one way section. There have been calls for the signage in the area to be improved to make the change more apparent.
(Story courtesy of the Plympton Podcast)
