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THINGS TO CONSIDER IN £100m M3 Junction 9 PROJECT BY WINNALL

Winchester

PUT aside the fact that the solving of the Winnall-Junction 9 bottleneck is likely to cause a new bottleneck further down the road in Southampton (the improvement of the junction at Winchester will increase the capacity of the road and thus place pressure somewhere else on the network). Amid the general positive reaction to the news that £100 million is set to be spent at Winnall there is a detail that should not be overlooked.

Traffic from the Winnall roundabout aiming to join the A33 northbound just south of the Cart and Horses will have to cross two lanes of high-speed traffic in a very short distance.

Simply put, there will sooner or later be a serious accident. Then another and another. At the moment traffic going onto the A34 and then aiming to join the A33 has around half a mile to get into position across only two lanes and usually the speed of the traffic has been slowed by having to stop at the Winnall roundabout.

What the Highways England is proposing is that traffic will join a high-speed two-lane dual carriageway with traffic going at 70mph, although in reality much faster, and then almost immediately have to swerve across those lanes to take the right-slip road for the A33.

There either needs to be some serious engineering work, taking a chunk from Winnall Moors nature reserve, or the removal of the option to go north onto the A33. Over to you, Highways England!

Source: http://www.hampshirechronicle.co.uk