MOTORISTS fed up with Wokingham’s traffic misery have launched a petition calling on the borough council to take action.
As we revealed last week, the closure of a section of Denmark Street by Wokingham’s town hall has caused almighty delays on the borough’s choked roads.
Drivers are reporting journeys that would take 10 minutes now taking up to two hours to complete, as roadworks around entrances into Wokingham town centre combine with the Market Place works to create the perfect storm.
Resident Clive Chafer set up the petition, which is on change.org.
Headed “Get the traffic out of Wokingham town centre”, the petition has attracted just over 500 signatures since it was launched on Saturday.
Mr Chafer calls on Wokingham Council to make “a plan to take this traffic out of the centre, give us back our market town, and make living, shopping and socialising here a pleasure again.”
In the introduction to the petition, he notes: “Wokingham is being strangled by traffic. Two main roads (A329 and A321) meet in the centre. But so far the only effort that has been made to relieve this and make the centre an attractive place to meet, walk and shop is to put all the through traffic onto existing small streets and roads (Wellington, Rectory, Langborough, Murdoch…) near the centre.
“These roads were never built to take through traffic, and the narrow streets in the centre (Peach, Denmark…) are certainly not up to the job.”
Many signing agreed. Helen Lamb noted: “Something serious needs to be done to relieve the traffic issues in and around Wokingham, a good start would be to stop building more houses it’s insane.”
Emma Dally said: “It is completely ridiculous, takes forever to get in and out of town any time of day.”
Charlotte Ellard said it took longer to get her son to nursery than it did for her to commute to London. She added: “I’m signing because the traffic is hideous.”
And Gavin Whitwell said: “Our councill seem clueless and inept.”
The petition can be signed here.
