Cost of revamping ageing traffic lights to top £1m
BBCThe cost of replacing ageing traffic lights at five major junctions in Lancashire will top £1m.
Details of the budgets were revealed after highways bosses announced when the next sets of works are due to take place in Preston.
Lancashire County Council is upgrading the lights at each of the busy intersections in order to introduce new technology that the authority says will make journeys more efficient and also improve pedestrian safety.
It has warned the current traffic signals – and the systems that underpin them – are becoming increasingly difficult to maintain because of their age, with some going as far back as the 1970s.
Sprawling junction
The county council last week completed the first of the five upgrade schemes, at the junction between Garstang Road, North Road and Moor Lane.
The Local Democracy Reporting Service said this is currently expected to be the most expensive of the projects, with an anticipated final bill of £300,000.
On the A59, at the junction of Ringway, Church Street and Stanley Street – close to Preston Prison – replacement work is set to begin on 2 March with an estimated cost of £260,000.
The remaining three projects are all back on the Garstang Road section of the A6.
At the crossroads where the route meets St George's Road and Aqueduct Street, the upgrade is scheduled to begin on 3 March and highways officials have estimated it will cost £120,000.
The installation of new signals at Garstang Road's more sprawling junction with Blackpool Road, close to Moor Park, has a budget £250,000, while it is expected the improvements at the busy intersection with Black Bull Lane and Sharoe Green Lane will come with £210,000 price tag.
A start date is yet to be announced for either of the latter two schemes.
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