Chesterfield driving instructor slams “dangerous” changes to Whittington Moor roundabout – as council remains confident they will be “successful”

The A61 is set for eight nights of work from Monday, July 24 – with resurfacing taking place on the Whittington Moor roundabout.

Derbyshire County Council (DCC) has also introduced new lane markings on the approach roads to the roundabout, designed to reduce unexpected lane changes and minimise the need for sudden braking.

Michael Harte, 54, is a driving instructor who has been teaching in Chesterfield for 15 years – and is also a member of the Chesterfield Driving Instructors Association. He said that these changes have made the roundabout dangerous to navigate, and that DCC should have informed drivers of any changes much earlier.

“The main issue is the lack of forward planning. They’re not warning people that they’re changing everything, so every single time you attempt to go round the roundabout, you’ve got someone in the wrong lane because they’ve not been told that they’ve changed.

“You’ve then got people who are swapping lanes in the middle of the roundabout, and obviously it’s a national speed limit roundabout, which makes it even more dangerous.

“They should’ve put signs up prior. How can you make all these massive road changes and not tell people. That’s what the danger is, nobody is aware of what they’ve done.”

Michael highlighted the Sheffield Road and Brimington Road North turn offs as particular concerns. He added that drivers are unlikely to check the road markings without any other warnings of changes at the roundabout – with even a police officer being caught out by the alterations.

“For the B6057 Sheffield Road, if you’re going to Eckington, this is clearly straight on at the third exit, but they’ve now made that a right turn. This is the main one that causes a lot of the problems.

“From the B6050 Brimington turn, they’ve put everything in the left lane and you can only go right to Eckington, why not right to Sheffield from that lane? It just doesn’t make any sense.

“It’s a common theme with DCC, they believe that people are just going to read the floor and do it correctly. They’re very belligerent in this. The fact is that the average person, once they’ve been on a roundabout a couple of times, won’t look at the markings again.

“One of the other instructors even saw a police officer doing it wrong, getting in the middle lane and going straight on as they’ve always done. You can’t just blame the general public for doing it wrong when you’ve got professionals doing it too.”

Michael said that these issues have made his job especially difficult, and that as well as communicating their plans earlier, he felt that DCC should have been clearer about what changes would be implemented.

“Anything this major on such a busy and fast roundabout should’ve been communicated properly with diagrams showing the new layout.

“It’s major changes like turning right from the left hand lane from Brimington. Anybody who doesn’t know that roundabout, if you’re going right, you’ll automatically go for the right hand lane.

“Especially for somebody in my position, I need to be able to teach this. The following week somebody is going to be on their test and will have to deal with it.”

While he admitted that drivers will eventually become accustomed to the changes, Michael added that accidents may well occur before then.

“They come along and change everything, leave it for months and months, see how many accidents there are and then they might make a tweak. Every single time I’ve been on the roundabout, turning from Sheffield Road, someone has cut me up.

“It’ll get better because people will start getting beeped at and they’ll start to look, but it shouldn’t take somebody being hit or nearly hit – it should’ve been done prior.

“It’s an issue of road safety. Every time we mention it to them we just get a stock answer – ‘we’re doing this’ and ‘we’ve spent £350,000’ – like that’s impressive. They’ve spent £350,000 badly then and they’ve wasted taxpayer’s money. It’ll need changing or there’s going to be accidents. In time, people will get used to it, but without prior warning it’s dangerous.”

DCC has confirmed that they will be installing temporary ‘new road layout ahead’ signs on the approaches to the roundabout from early next week – alerting people to the changes.

READ THIS: Bungling burglars travelled 120 miles from Luton for Chesterfield electronics firm break-in

Julian Gould, Highways Director for Derbyshire County Council said: “As part of our major £350,000 resurfacing improvements to the Whittington Moor roundabout, which will see the final phase of works starting on Monday next week (24/7/23), we are applying new lining to the approach roads and roundabout.

“As part of our approach to improve safety at the roundabout, we have included new lane markings on the approach roads with arrows to help direct people to specific destinations.

“The lane markings have been designed to help road users by minimising unexpected lane changes and sudden braking, helping to improve road safety for everyone.

“Furthermore, between the northbound and southbound entry points to the A61, we have reduced the width of the roundabout to two lanes, using hatching and red surfacing. This change has been done for a short distance on both sides of the roundabout to help people use the correct lane more easily.

“Early next week, we will be installing temporary ‘new road layout ahead’ reminder signs on the approaches to the roundabout to alert people to the changes. We will carefully monitor the impact of the changes to assess how road users adjust to them.

“We feel confident that when the roundabout markings are in place and road users have had some time to familiarise themselves with the new layout, they will prove to be successful.”