Southampton City Council announces temporary traffic management plans ahead of busy weekend

The measures will help to minimise disruption while a number of events are taking place over the weekend

With the coming weekend set to be a busy one in the city, Southampton City Council has announced a range of temporary traffic management plans to help minimise any potential travel disruption.

As well as the Southampton International Boat Show, which draws to a close with a special Community Day on Sunday 19 September, there are a number of other high-profile events also on the horizon. These include the Isle of Wight festival which commences tomorrow (Thursday 16 September); the England Lionesses’ match at St Mary’s Stadium on Friday evening; and Race for Life which will be running in Southampton Common on Saturday. Together with the usual cruise ship arrivals into the city, Southampton City Council expects this to be a particularly busy period and, alongside its Highways Partners at Balfour Beatty Living Places, has planned a comprehensive package of measures to manage the impact of additional traffic into the city centre.

These include a signed city centre diversion route directing through traffic away from the Waterfront area and around the northern part of the inner ring road. Visitors to the city centre and the Boat Show will also be directed to use part of this route to access city centre parking. This will free up the Waterfront for those requiring direct access, such as cruise and Red Funnel passengers.

On West Quay Road, additional signage will be in place to ensure that drivers travelling between Ikea, the cruise terminals and Red Funnel are in the correct lanes. This will help to further minimise delays and disruption in this area, where higher levels of traffic are anticipated.

Highways staff will be closely monitoring all traffic signals around the city centre and, where necessary, will make adjustments to their operation in order to manage changing traffic conditions. At Red Funnel, the set-up of the traffic signals at the pedestrian crossing will be altered to enable manual intervention; where appropriate, the signals will hold traffic on Town Quay to allow the movement of disembarking ferry passengers and ensure a smooth flow of traffic in and out of the terminal.

Crews will also be working on the ground to oversee traffic levels in the city and make changes to traffic management if needed.

In addition to these measures, the council is continuing to encourage everyone to plan ahead for any journeys during this busier period. Anyone wishing to travel in and around the city centre over the weekend is advised to check for traffic hotspots in advance by using the Journey Planner on the My Journey website and to consider retiming their journeys where appropriate. Live travel updates are also available from Romanse and @scchighways on Twitter.

People are also being asked to consider other modes of travel, such as public transport, walking, cycling or using the legal e-scooters provided through the council’s contract with Voi. People can access further advice and support about alternative travel options via The Travel Southampton pages on the My Journey website.

Councillor Moulton, Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for Growth, says:

“It’s great to once again be holding events in the city and to see so many people coming here to be a part of them. Whether you’re travelling this weekend to one of these events or coming into the city to enjoy everything else we have to offer, we want to make sure the experience is a stress-free one for everybody. We would like to reassure everyone that we have a range of measures in place to minimise disruption and my thanks go to everyone involved in the careful planning and preparations that have gone into this. Please do continue to plan ahead if you’re going to be travelling over the weekend and, most importantly, enjoy yourself.”