Four-point road plan to consider
It looks as if our council (Walsall) are about to spend more of our money on half-baked road ‘improvements’.
1) Mellish Road Island: This works fine – the problem is the Arboretum junction which backs up to this island for a large part of the day. The badly construed and (allegedly) planned conversion at the Arboretum junction from an island to multi-lights junction has never worked.
As we have this abomination, a change to it would solve something like 50 per cent of the jam. The left turn filter lane from A461 to Broadway is much too short – it should extend much further up towards the Mellish Road Island.
If a change at this island is going to happen – do it properly. There is spare land (the old church) on the Mellish Island to enable the top end of this to work, thus allowing the skewing of the intersection onto this area.
I guess this would also involve some land grab from the Arboretum but I feel the outcome would be worth the small sacrifice.
Alternatively, get rid of the lights at the Arboretum junction and revert to an island – only this time with each converging road having its own access island to the larger central one (Hemel Hempstead has such an arrangement and it works brilliantly).
2) Rushall/Pelsall Lane Intersection: Yes, this intersection does need some amendment – knock down McDonald’s (better for the health of the local population?) and make the intersection a proper island (we might wish!).
3) Junction with A452 (Shire Oak Junction): Yes, this is needed, but something much more radical than painting some pretty lines in the road is needed.
4) Increasing width of Lichfield Road: This was muted many years ago – the council apparently bought a tranche of land to do this in the Shelfield area.
The plans lapsed and the land was sold on.
Housing now occupies the land – is this going to happen again?
David Archer, Pelsall
