More than £1m to be spent on 'city centre terror mitigation' in Peterborough after audit finds 'areas of weakness'

More than £1m will be spent on “city centre terror mitigation” in Peterborough.

The council has allocated £1.16m to installing “physical measures” on the roads to protect residents and businesses after an audit identified “areas of weakness in case of a terrorist attack on the city centre”.

Peterborough City Council (PCC) says it will lay out the specifics of the scheme in due course.

“We are at an early stage of developing this work and given the sensitive nature of this project it would be inappropriate for us to disclose full proposals at this time," a spokesperson said.

“However, we will look at all options around installing infrastructure in areas of the city centre that have been identified following an audit and updates will be announced in due course.”

The project is one of three which will receive a share of £8.1m approved for highways services in the council’s 2023/4 budget.

The largest project, allocated £6m which has come via the government’s towns fund, will see ‘Cygnet Bridge’ built over the River Nene, connecting Fletton Quays and the Embankment for pedestrians and cyclists.

The smallest, allocated £1m, is to repair roads damaged by extreme weather.

PCC’s cabinet will be asked to sign off on the projects at a meeting on Monday, 11th March.

They will also be asked to sign off on the council’s plans for a separate £6.83m pot of funding for highways which has come via the Department for Transport.

More than half of this will go towards potholes, while just under £1m will go towards street lighting.

Within the pothole budget, £3.011m will be spent on road resurfacing and similar works across the city.

Examples of roads where works will be carried out include Broadway and Priestgate in the city centre, Exeter Road and Eastern Close in Dogsthorpe and Oundle Road and Brimbles Way in the Ortons.

Others span Barnack, Bretton, Eastgate, Eye, Fengate, Fletton, Maxey, New England, Stanground Thorney, Walton, Werrington, Wittering and Woodston.

A further £300k will be spent on carriageway surface dressing treatment on roads such as the A16 in Eye and A15 in Glinton, while £284k will go towards footway treatments, primarily in Glinton, Stanground and Westwood.

Gresley Way’s streetlights will be upgraded with the £800k allocated to street lighting, meanwhile, as will those at Thorpe Wood, Rightwell East and the A16/B1443 roundabout.

Several small footbridges will be replaced in Werrington Park and Baron Court while the Westfield Road Retaining Wall will also benefit from £1.2m allocated to bridge improvements.

Finally, £1.235m will be spent on general improvements including city centre cycle storage lockers, electric vehicle charging points and enhancing the Queensgate bus station and its accessibility.

Several traffic calming measures will also be added to the city including speed cushions on Elmfield Road in Dogsthorpe, a traffic island on Buckland Close in Bretton, a one-way system on Millstone Lane in Barnack and widening the footway on the Mayor’s Walk in the city centre.

All of these projects are due to begin in the 2024/25 financial year and will be carried out by Milestone Infrastructure Limited, which has been contracted by the council to undertake its highways improvements for more than a decade.