Traffic in Blackpool is TWICE as bad as rest of country new report shows

Standstills and delays on the resort’s roads are almost twice as bad as in the rest of the country, figures released by the Department for Transport show.

Long suffering cabbies, delivery drivers and just about anyone else who needs to negotiate their way through the town will not be surprised by the figures, which reveal how many seconds drivers will spend stationary for every mile they travel on an A road.

On the Fylde coast, that’s a whopping 70 seconds, the data for Blackpool shows.

So, for a daily commute of five miles, a driver should add around six minutes to the journey to get to work on time.

Over the past year, Blackpool has been hit by bridge closures, heavy work on Talbot Road and Dickson Road for the new tram track, while the previous loss of the dual carriageway on the Prom has also slowed traffic down.

A Blackpool Council spokesman said: “Blackpool is the UK’s most visited seaside destination with 18 million visitors a year and therefore cannot be compared with inland towns that do not attract significant volumes of visitors. When compared to the major city destinations within the survey, Blackpool actually compares very favourably.”

The latest statistics, covering 2017, show there has been a rise of four per cent on the previous year, but drivers in Blackpool say things have been even worse so far this year.

And the figures show that traffic jams, one of Britain’s least popular national pastimes, are getting worse.

In 2015 delays in England were on average more than two seconds shorter.

All of this impacts speeds on A roads, where England’s average is 25mph despite speed limits ranging between 30mph to 70mph on anything from small urban roads to dual carriageways.

In 2017, motorists in Blackpool meandered along at 18mph on average, slower than the previous year by one per cent.

The Department for Transport recently announced it was investing up to £10 million in Street Manager, a programme which will pass on up-to-date information about roadworks to sat-navs and navigation apps.

Roads Minister, Jesse Norman, said: “Roadworks can often be frustrating for motorists.

“We want to reduce this disruption, and Street Manager is just one of a number of actions we are taking.”