Moray Council traffic engineers make temporary fix at Orchard Road traffic lights that took too long to change
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THE TIME setting has been ‘fixed’ at a major local junction’s traffic lights that changed too quickly.
The lights at the junction of St Catherines Road, Thornhill Road and Orchard Road that were installed last spring by Moray Council to make the crossroad safer for school children had been causing tailbacks while SGN carried out works nearby.
The lights for vehicles on Orchard Road moving onto St Catherines Road stayed green for around 17 seconds, allowing just five to pass at a time.
A local authority spokesperson confirmed engineers investigated the issue before Christmas.
She said: “The maintenance company was asked to look into this on the back of complaints about queuing traffic. A fault was discovered in one of the traffic sensors, which requires a new part. Our contractor will repair this as soon as they have the new part. In the meantime, adjustments were made to minimise the effect.”
Forres Community Councillor John Innes regularly uses the route.
“They seem better,” he said, “allowing eight or nine vehicles through at a time now. As a whole, they are fine, especially for youngsters going to and from school as there hasn’t been a patroller there since 2019.”
However, Mr Innes, who lives on nearby South Street, acknowledged issues for fellow motorists.
He said: “There certainly were a lot of teething problems from the start ... gas network improvements didn’t help. Many people were getting frustrated and clogging up the lanes trying to get through and the sensors didn’t work which caused bottlenecks. Hopefully things will settle down once they are adjusted properly and people get used to them.”
Mr Innes compared the current traffic issues in the centre of Forres to Nairn.
He said: “There’s always going to be peak times during school runs and when work finishes so folk should consider when they commute and try to find alternative routes - even leaving ten minutes earlier might help! Forres could do with a perimeter road to take traffic away from town and school routes.”
