We are aware of recent issues with traffic congestion on the inbound side of Tavistock Road, where works are taking place for the Woolwell to the George scheme.
Because this is such a busy corridor it is impossible for us to deliver the vital work on this scale without causing disruption. With limited road space and no practical alternative routes, our aim is to complete the works as quickly and safely as possible while minimising this disruption as much as we can.
We absolutely understand the frustration and pressure this congestion causes for people travelling through the area and would like to apologise for this.
We have had teams on site since the new measures were put in place to monitor the traffic and looking at how we can improve the flow of traffic.
See our FAQs here – including why we can’t reopen the right turn into Woolwell Road.
Live updates – what are we doing to improve the congestion?
Friday 7 March
Today we have been working hard to make further improvements to ease the congestion. As we have completed some of the works, we have been able to reduce the northern end of the site access. This means we have been able to shorten the southbound lane closure after Plessey Roundabout, therefore the merge does not need to start until after Bickleigh Down Road.
We are already seeing that this has made a big difference and will continue to monitor over the coming days.
Thursday 6 March
We can see that an additional cause of the queuing traffic is the increased queuing on and around Belliver Roundabout and the merge onto the inbound side of Tavistock Road.
Therefore, our contractors have removed 20m of their construction site exit ‘solid fencing’ and replaced it with ‘cones’ that can be moved. This means that during the peak periods, we will be able to give more vehicular capacity on the approach to the crossing.
We are monitoring the situation and in conversation with our engineers we will look to make further changes over the next few days to ease the congestion. Watch this space – further updates tomorrow.
Wednesday 5 March
Engineers carried out a further review of the congestion at peak times, to try to understand why congestion is still mounting.
We know that many people think an easy fix would be to reopen the right turn into Woolwell Road. We do not believe that this would improve the situation. In fact, it would make things much worse. Inbound traffic, which is now down to one lane, would have to give way to a steady flow of right turning traffic at Woolwell Roundabout.
Currently, traffic from Dartmoor does not have to give way to the diverted Woolwell traffic at Belliver Roundabout. Woolwell Roundabout is significantly smaller than Belliver Roundabout and provides much less opportunity to ‘stack’ traffic, meaning the impact of queuing would be substantially worse and quickly affect the whole network.
Modelling of the traffic management before we started works in September showed that, without the right turn ban, traffic would queue back to Yelverton. As well as the inconvenience this would cause to general traffic, congestion on this scale would have a significant impact on buses and emergency services.
The right-turn ban reduced this queue by more than half, indicating it would be closer to Clearbrook at busy times. While traffic modelling is not an exact science, it is an important tool to help us assess the impact of changes to the road network. We know that it is inconvenient but the right turn ban is needed to reduce the impact on journeys along this whole corridor.
Tuesday 4 March
Engineers monitored the changes made to the crossing on Friday and further increased the crossing wait time to 45 seconds.
Friday 28 February
We believe one of the main causes of the queuing traffic is the high demand and ‘call’ timing at the pedestrian crossing at Woolwell Roundabout. Signal engineers adjusted the signal timings of the crossing to allow an extra 30 second wait, in the hope this will help to improve traffic flow. See our statement.
More information about the works to improve Woolwell to the George