Will major plans for Inshes roundabout in Inverness lead to more traffic queues?
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Further clarity is needed on whether planned changes at an Inverness traffic bottleneck will lead to more traffic queues, say council officers.
Major changes have been proposed by Highland Council in a bid to ease congestion at Inshes roundabout and the surrounding area.
They include reducing the number of exits from the roundabout from six to four which will be controlled by traffic lights.
An application has also been lodged to create three new accesses from the B9006 to Drakies housing estate, Inshes Retail Park and Police Scotland’s Highlands and Islands headquarters plus stopping up four access points.
As the application progresses through the planning process, the council's planning transport team is seeking clarification on several points regarding the potential impact on the main B9006, including the roundabout.
It previously sought information on whether the predicted queue lengths for a new Inshes Retail Park junction would generate unacceptable queuing back on the B9006 and the Dell of Inshes Road.
Although further information has been provided, the transport planning team says further clarity is still needed.
Its submission states: "Whilst we acknowledge that the fine tuning of how the new signalised junction is to operate will be undertaken both through their final design and subsequent implementation, we would expect an application for full planning permission to have evidenced that the new junction arrangements are predicted to operate effectively in the wider context of the overall corridor improvements and predicted demands on that corridor going forward.
"We’ve not at this stage been able to determine if that is the case from the information provided.
"We therefore retain our previous recommendation that further clarification is provided on the predicted maximum queue lengths of traffic resulting from the new signalised junction where the Dell of Inshes Road will meet the B9006, including whether those queue lengths could adversely impact on the safe and effective operation of adjacent junctions."
It is also seeking clarity about how the designs for the scheme will coordinate with a new A9 overbridge being delivered through the separate East Link Road, managed by Transport Scotland, which will cost up to £35 million and connect the A9 and A96.
The transport planning team's response states: "The latest proposals include comments about requiring a temporary transition should the new bridge not be in place before the new Dell of Inshes signalised junction with the B9006 is constructed.
"Our previous response sought clarification on whether the new bridge needed to be in place for the new retail park access junction to work effectively.
"We’ve not identified that in the latest information and therefore retain our previous recommendation that such clarification is sought."
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The planning team also recommends revised proposals are sought that provide a more appropriate pedestrian connection to the Tesco Extra facility in the Tesco Filling Station.
