Dunstable: Council U-turn on part of £7m town centre revamp

Councillor Ian Dalgarno said the town now had the "ambience to entice people back"

Some works carried out to a town centre as part of a £7m revamp are being reversed after a council admitted the changes were not working.

The three-year project for Dunstable town centre was completed in May, with new traffic layouts and wider paving.

Central Bedfordshire Council said as resurfacing works were now needed, it would "revert" to an old road layout.

Independent Dunstable town councillor John Gurney said of the changes: "Why didn't they get it right?".

Work got under way in Dunstable in September 2018 and was completed in stages

The changes are due to take five days to complete next month, with road closures and diversions put in place.

Mr Gurney said the town had become a "festival of roadworks" during the project, which started in September 2018.

He said the changes to the road lanes and markings on Church Street were necessary after drivers started avoiding the town centre due to traffic delays caused by the new layout.

"What they initially set up was the left-hand lane only turns left and the right-hand lane was for going right and straight on," he said.

"It doesn't work, so they are going to put an arrow on the left-hand lane to go straight across and the right-hand lane will be turning right.

"I haven't got any more details on what they are going to do with the other three lanes, but hopefully they are going to revert them back to how they used to work."

New seating was put in place as part of the revamp

The Conservative-controlled Central Bedfordshire Council said the Dunstable High Street Project had been externally funded and did not cost taxpayers anything.

It said it had discovered resurfacing works were already needed and had told the contractor to cover the cost.

"Changes to traffic signals that were implemented were based on information we had at the time," the council said in a statement.

"However, traffic patterns have changed and we are able to revert back to the previous layout on Church Street using the existing traffic signals, without incurring any additional cost.

"The changes to lane markings will be completed as part of the resurfacing works, so will not affect any timings or use any additional equipment."

Wider pavements were installed as part of the Dunstable High Street Project

The project was funded by the government's Homes England scheme, National Highways, South East Midlands Local Enterprise Partnership (SEMLEP), the Local Growth Fund and Anglian Water.