Preston roads revamp revealed

The estimated cost - which will be wholly funded by UCLan - emerged during a cabinet meeting at Lancashire County Council. Details about the specific changes to traffic flow in the area were also revealed.

As the highways authority for the area, the council will be responsible for carrying out the work and has been involved in helping to design the scheme.

Cabinet members agreed that a total of £10.4m should be paid upfront in order to remove any financial risk to the council itself.

County Cllr Keith Iddon, cabinet member for Highways and Transport, said: “Once we start this development, there is no point of return.

“With previous developments, you could always stop if people didn’t come up with the money. But with this development, there is a lot of work we will never see.

“It’s underground work and, once we have started, we will have to complete it,” he added.

Planning permission for the overall development - which will cost £60m - was approved by Preston City Council in January.

But members of the city’s planning committee said they wanted controlled pedestrian crossings to be included in the plan - a feature which is absent from the Fishergate shared space scheme.

A report presented to Lancashire County Council’s cabinet described the Adelphi Quarter development as being “modelled on the principles of the Fishergate Central Gateway design”.

The proposed design will have to be presented to Preston City Council to ensure compliance with the authority’s own planning conditions.

Cabinet members were informed that the work - which is due to begin in March 2019 - will include:

***Adelphi Street being closed to traffic immediately north of its junction with St. Peter Street, with all vehicles diverted eastwards in the direction of Moor Lane.

***Traffic will be prohibited from the junction of Adelphi Street and Victoria Street in order to make the area pedestrian and cycle-friendly.

***Traffic lights will be installed on Victoria Street at its junctions with Adelphi Street and Moor Lane, becoming the main route for vehicles and buses, to replace the closed Adelphi Street link to the south.

***Harrington Street will revert to two-way operation.

The highways works are expected to be completed by September 2020.