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Peterborough Garden Park: Meeting called to end road chaos
AN emergency meeting is being called to try to prevent further traffic chaos on the roads surrounding the new Peterborough Garden Park (PGP).
AN emergency meeting is being called to try to prevent further traffic chaos on the roads surrounding the new Peterborough Garden Park (PGP).Bosses at the new centre will be meeting with traffic experts from Peterborough City Council on Wednesday after its opening day on Friday saw motorists stuck in traffic jams over a mile long on the Paston Parkway, near the Eye roundabout.
Last weekend shoppers faced queues of over an hour to get out of the car park onto Peterborough Road after the traffic lights controlling the traffic flow out from PGP went out of sequence so that fewer cars than normal could get out.
While the traffic lights were installed by the developers for PGP, the road and the sequencing of the lights fall under the responsibility of Peterborough City Council's highways department.
This week's meeting will be to discuss the ways in which the traffic situation can be managed better to prevent the problems.
The council's cabinet member for neighbourhood, housing and community development Peter Hiller said: "Any new store of this size and magnitude will always generate an inordinate amount of interest.
"However there have been a number of issues brought to our attention which we are now looking at, including marshalling of vehicles inside the car park and the knock-on affect outside.
"There will be a special site meeting this week between all the parties involved in which we hope to address these issues."
As a result of the problem with queuing vehicles in the car park PGP has also employed extra traffic marshalls to keep cars moving.
PGP centre manager Eric Kirk said: "The traffic lights have now been fixed and we don't anticipate the traffic congestion we saw over the weekend to happen again this weekend.
"The meeting will look at ways we can improve car parking and the sequences of the lights."
But from a retail standpoint PGP has said the opening weekend was a success with shoppers flocking there in their hundreds.
PGP chairman Gordon Edington said: "The opening weekend surpassed all our expectations. We obviously had some issues with the traffic and I am very sorry that some people were inconvenienced.
"But the overriding feedback from people has been very positive about the shopping experience and the sheer quality of what they found.
"We didn't count how many people went through the doors but I know the retailers were very happy and I'm sure their turnover figures will look healthy."
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Saturday 26 May 2012
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Temperature: 11 C to 23 C
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