Town councillors have given a guarded welcome to a major project to redesign Burnham-On-Sea’s M5 junction.
Councillors agreed at this month’s meeting that changes are “very important” at the busy junction.
However, they are keen to see the plans in detail to understand more about the potential benefits and disruption during the work and they would like to see a working model.
It comes as Somerset Council is currently inviting feedback on the project to improve Burnham-On-Sea’s M5 roundabout at Edithmead.
The Council is working in partnership with North Somerset Council to secure Government funding for a series of improvement schemes along a stretch of the A38 which runs from the Edithmead Roundabout at M5 Junction 22 at Burnham-On-Sea to the South Bristol Link.
Councillor Julie Flurry said she had experienced “frightening queues on the exit slipway with traffic backing up along the main carriageway at busy times — it is an accident waiting to happen.”
Cllr Millard added that she feels the council should be involved in planning the work to minimise the disruption on local traffic.
Cllr Ganesh Gudka added: “Disruption is okay if there’s a future benefit, but I don’t know whether what they are proposing to do is actually going to have a big enough difference.” He added he would like to read more about the rationale for the changes and the hoped-for benefits.
Cllr Peter Clayton added that he supports the need for more detail. He added that he is also concerned about the safety risk from “horrendous” queues of traffic along the exit slipway backing up onto the carriageway at peak times which are a “massive concern”. He added: “It needs urgent work.”
Cllr Barbara Vickers added: “It seems to be a very complicated scene and I would really like to see a working model to understand it better.”
Plans for Burnham’s M5 roundabout include:
- Creation of a through-about with signals on all arms of the roundabout. The scheme aims to improve the Edithmead Roundabout to tackle the existing issues of congestion and queuing back onto the motorway.
- Redesign the roundabout to increase the number of traffic lanes on each roundabout entry arm;
- Widen the carriageway;
- Provide a through-lane for right-turning vehicles from junction 22 to the A38 northbound;
- Install traffic signals on all approach arms and on the roundabout carriageway.
Click here to see the proposals and take part in the engagement
Somerset Council’s Lead Member for Transport and Waste, Councillor Richard Wilkins, says: “Working in partnership with North Somerset Council, we are very hopeful we can get funding from Government to make these improvements, clearly this is a very busy route and road users along with local people would benefit hugely from these improvements.”
“We really want people to take part in the engagement, funding will be tight if we’re successful and we can’t make wholesale changes to the proposals or designs, but people’s input will play an important role in finalising the schemes.”
