Road closures continue in Plymouth

Royal Parade will be safer for passengers

Overnight road closures will continue over the next two weeks in Plymouth’s Royal Parade as a £7.5 million improvement scheme for buses nears completion.

Resurfacing work will take place tonight (Tuesday), Wednesday and Thursday and there will be more overnight closures on weekdays next week.

There is likely to be some more disruption over the next few weeks ahead of full completion on February 19.

A quarter of Plymouth residents do not have a car and rely on public transport to get around. The scheme aims to reduce delays at the key bus interchange by creating more stops, cutting queues and double stacking of buses, making services more reliable and helping to make going by bus a more attractive option than the private car.

Over 100 buses stop at Royal Parade every hour and there are more than nine million passengers journeys each year to and from the site. A new layout will result in the number of bus stops increasing from 12 to 15 and they will be bigger with more space for wheelchair users and pushchairs and have green roofs.

The council says the new layout will improve bus manoeuvrability and safety by reducing the need for buses to reverse out from stops and allow passengers to get on and off from the pavement.

Work has included an upgraded toucan crossing at Armada Way for pedestrians and cyclists.

Nighttime working will keep disruption to a minimum as the eight month project comes to an end.

City centre champion Cllr Mark Lowry (Lab, Southway) told a council cabinet meeting on Monday that foundations for all new bus shelters all been laid, four bus shelters were installed last week and the remaining 11 will be complete over the coming few weeks

Paving on the shop side was complete and the paving around bus shelters would be in the next few days. 

A speed camera has been installed and would shortly be operational, he added.

Overnight closures, which have all been advertised, would sometimes involve the whole road, the east or west carriageway or sometimes just pedestrian crossings, he said.

Traffic will be diverted via Western Approach and Cobourg Street during these times,  Courtenay Street car park remains open but the public have been advised to park elsewhere to avoid delays as motorists may need to wait to exit Courtenay Street car park because of ongoing works.

Cllr Lowry said the scheme was “on time and budget” and would be fully opened on Monday, February 23 which was “good news”.

“It’s another part of the city centre opening up and it will be far better and safer,” he said. “All parts of the jigsaw of the city centre are coming together.”

The scheme was delayed by six months due to contractual issues and costs rose by £2.5 million.

Monies for the works were secured from the Department for Transport’s Transforming Cities Fund and Bus Grant, Historic England’s Heritage Action Zone funding and the Council’s Better Places funding.

All bus stops on the shops side of Royal Parade were removed while work took place to lay new pre-case concrete slabs to form the pavement. 

Temporary stops were set up in alternative locations around the city centre.

Plymouth City Council leader Tudor Evans (Lab, Ham) said the work undertaken by Morgan Sindall, which is also the main contractor for the Armada Way £30 million regeneration scheme, had been “managed beautifully”.

He told cabinet members he had to keep reminding himself that “Rome wasn’t built in a day” and said the project would be great when it was finished.

An official opening is being planned.