I don’t think there’s anything that can be done about this but wanted to check.
It looks as though the residents of Wentbridge, Wakefield have convinced the council to put up some signage to discourage drivers from using their village as a rat run to the A1.
This is the signage at the crossroads of the A639 Doncaster Rd / B6474 Wentbridge Lane, taken from May this year, but may have since changed because a UR mentioned there is a sign warning of CCTV footage now. I’m no expert but this looks like temporary signage and I don’t think it is enforceable. I mean, how would they be able to tell where people have come from and where they’re going to without some sort of sophisticated surveillance/ANPR system?!
The problem is that this is one of 3 routes into Wentbridge and the primary route from the West, so I can’t simply apply restrictions or whatever because that will affect routing into the village. The only possible option I can see is using paths but my understanding after reading the notes on phase 2 is that they currently don’t support turn restrictions. Has that changed?
I don’t think adding a PR segment will help as again that will affect routing for anyone going to Wentbridge.
I’m starting to get URs regularly here now from, understandably, confused motorists. Any bright ideas?
This is very likely a temporary sign due to the roadworks on the A1 at the Wentbridge viaduct. I went through the works last week, its a single lane in each direction over the bridge and the queues for the lanes to merge can be huge at peak times. https://www.itv.com/news/calendar/2023-08-03/drivers-warned-of-delays-to-motorway-viaduct-repairs-into-spring-2024
Its likely that Waze and google maps are diverting through the village to avoid the roadworks.
Personally I would leave it, there is no official restriction and it will be back to normal once work is complete.
The first UR that I came across here was from someone who appeared to have first hand knowledge of the situation because they said about residents being upset and this was the council’s way of appeasing them. That was around the same day I wrote the map comment.
I can see the roadworks exacerbating the issue but it feels like more than that and I’m not sure that it will disappear when they clear, but we’ll see. If they’ve gone to the trouble of installing signs about cameras and even actual or dummy cameras then it feels a bit more permanent.
I have the same issue with a local village in my home area. The council put up no through road signs due to it being a possible diversion route of an expressway closure. There’s no legal restriction, only an advisory. Problem is, you get so many URs from ignorant users that you might just aswell mark it as private.
If I do that though, anyone wanting to go to Wentbridge is likely to get a stupid route, involving potentially having to go onto the A1 at the Barnsdale Bar roundabout only to then get back off! So we’d then get URs for that, although granted probably not as many. I’m not sure of the extent of the time penalty for using a private segment.
