Residents in a picturesque Yorkshire town have complained after 42 sets of traffic lights were installed on a single junction.
Vehicles have to navigate the lights as they pass through the new Grovehill junction in Beverley, east Yorkshire, a town voted one of the best places in Britain to live.
The lights, which were introduced as part of a £22 million renovation, have “lit up” the crossing like “Hull fair”, according to Howard Tomlinson, 72, of the Grovehill Action Group.
“The main concern is the layout and complexity of the junction,” he said. “It’s like something you would see coming off a motorway. It’s like Spaghetti Junction. There are about ten sets of lights all close together and it requires drivers to be very alert.
“People don’t know where to look, drivers are looking at nearby green lights thinking they can go when in actual fact their light is on red. [The council] said it would take some months for it to bed in, but they don’t appear to be observing what is happening.”
Advertisement
Steven Smart, 50, a painter, said: “The lights look like a fairground - I avoid it like the plague. It’s a total waste of money. Things were absolutely fine at the roundabout beforehand. If it’s not broke don’t try and fix it.”
A spokesman for East Riding council, which implemented the changes, said: “As there will be more traffic using this junction, the old roundabout has been replaced with a junction controlled by traffic signals to control the traffic flow better at this location. We ask for motorists’ and pedestrians’ continued patience.”
Beverley was named as one of the best places to live in the UK by The Sunday Times last year. The town is renowned for its 13th-century minster, and a Yorkshire tourist website boasts that its medieval skyline remains “refreshingly unspoilt”.