Brixham Road work going well, council claims

Totnes MP more sceptical

Development work on Brixham Road is going well, and travel times to and from Brixham have barely been affected, according to Torbay Council leader Cllr Steve Darling (Liberal Democrat, Barton with Watcombe).

He’s concerned that criticism of the road closure might deter people from visiting the town.

The stretch of road connecting Windy Corner to Goodrington Road and Long Road was closed earlier this month, and traffic was diverted to Dartmouth Road on the other side of Goodrington Road.

Work on a housing development is taking place until the end of March, but the planned closure, approved last year, was met with anger from residents, commuters and business owners, some of whom were worried about the hit Brixham’s fish market would take.

Anthony Mangnall, Conservative MP for Totnes, labelled the closure “incredibly frustrating” last year, and a “huge blow” to the market.

Cllr Darling reiterated that the closure has not had an adverse effect on travel times, so he does not want the backlash to discourage visitors.

“My concern is that perception,” he said. “Particularly like Anthony Mangnall describing the decision to allow the road closure as being reckless by the local authority.

“I’m just worried that a lot of people are giving a second thought about making a visit to Brixham, when actually I’ve visited Brixham on a number of occasions.”

“Even at three o’clock on a Friday afternoon, when it’s peak school travel, it felt as if we’d been delayed by about two or three minutes. And it was probably just standard school traffic rather than anything too disastrous.”

Cllr Darling said that the work on Brixham Road is “on target” for completion, contrary to what some may believe.

“There’s some interesting social media posting that suggests that it’s a big empty road, but I know others have seen trenches being dug and activity happening on it,” he said.

“The cold weather hasn’t been the best of weather but equally it’s not as if we’ve had blizzards and so forth, so I’m left with a strong impression that it is on track.”

Mr Mangnall said that, while there are currently small delays, those delays could worsen as the months go by.

“There are clearly some delays for residents and some delays for businesses,” he said. “That much is apparent.

“What has essentially happened is Torbay never conducted any surveys into the road, into the traffic flows, and they never provided any data for the local residents to actually look at and explore to see what’s going on.

“It’s good news that people aren’t being delayed too much, but actually what Torbay has done is basically rolled the dice with businesses’ future by potentially jeopardising their trade flows, but also by making life a little harder for residents.

“So, I’m delighted that there aren’t significant delays, but we are only into the first month of this, and obviously when we hit busier times with people coming down to visit the area, we might see a different result. But for the moment, I’ve got my fingers crossed that it’s not going to be a disaster for businesses and residents in the area.”

Should work on Brixham Road continue into April, Mr Mangnall believes this would have an “adverse impact” on Brixham’s businesses and residents.