Gridlocked traffic 'volatile' amid call for change

Marlborough has two A-roads meeting and a lot of traffic.

A rural town has "volatile" traffic that requires intervention beyond just small changes to the road system, a study has found.

Residents in Marlborough say it is so bad that they can feel their homes "shake" when lorries go past, with one telling the BBC she would leave if she could.

The popular tourist town is at a meeting point of two busy A roads - one of which, the A346, the mayor, Councillor Kym-Marie Cleasby wants to see "de-primed". This, she believes, will lead to less commercial traffic.

Wiltshire Council said it will "seek to engage" with National Highways who are currently carrying out a study of traffic between the M4 and the Dorset coast.

Councillor Kym-Marie Cleasby is the town's mayor and said the A346 needs to be "de-primed"

Ms Cleasby also lives close to the town centre and operates a business delivering school meals, so traffic comes into the working day a lot.

"The traffic is appalling," she said.

"The town gets gridlocked. The number of times we have to call the schools and say we're going to be late again."

But she said the study into the town's traffic "backed up" what residents had been saying for "quite a long time".

The study said it had "demonstrated that the volatile traffic situation in Marlborough town centre is difficult to resolve through local improvements to the highway network within the town.

"It is therefore recommended that for long term improvement, interventions are required from a more strategic network management perspective."

Bigger interventions would include "de-priming" the A346, which Ms Cleasby said would be the "quickest win".

Traffic slows on the High Street when people have to park as well

Aside from travel problems, Ms Cleasby explained there is concern for children walking to school on narrow pavements beside A-roads.

"It's quite scary when you're walking down there," she said.

"These roads were not built for lorries of that size and weight, particularly on Herd Street and literally make the houses shake," she added.

Jackie rents in the centre of the town and said it is bad enough that she would move if she could.

Jackie rents a home next to a main road in the town and said she wanted to live somewhere else.

"I don't have much choice at the moment, but if I could move tomorrow, I would."

She said the traffic "is full-on, non-stop, the noise, the pollution" and has been there for five years and said it has got worse over that time.

Jackie said the lorries are particularly bad and wake up residents in the middle of the night.

Melanie lives in a nearby village, where people warn each other about the town's traffic in a WhatsApp group

Melanie lives in a village close to the town and admitted she visits other places sometimes because of the traffic.

"It is terrible," she said - adding it was easier to visit other towns.

"I nip to other places - I'll either go to Andover or Hungerford. Marlborough is bit tricky."

It is known for being so bad, that people warn each other on the village WhatsApp group.

A lot of visitors come into the town for tourism too

The study was commissioned after a request from Marlborough Town Council - it tested how different traffic models would react to changes to the road network.

Councillor Tamara Reay, Cabinet Member for Transport at Wiltshire Council, explained that none of them worked well enough.

"The study demonstrated that the traffic situation in Marlborough would be difficult to resolve through local improvements on the highway network.

"We will seek to engage with National Highways for a more strategic intervention, which would also provide benefits for villages on the A346/A338 affected by through traffic, through the M4 to Dorset Coast study," she added.