By Andrew Topping, Local Democracy Reporter
Calls for funding to be reallocated to fix the “nightmare” road junction near Sainsbury’s in Mansfield have been reignited following concerns of drivers continuing to be impacted by long queues.
The junction, on the A60 at the Mansfield Leisure Park retail hub, has long caused issues for motorists with two supermarkets, a cinema, two restaurants, a bingo hall and a McDonald’s all served by one entry and exit point.
Drivers can often queue for long periods waiting to get both in and out of the retail park, while cars queuing to enter it also cause long queues both up and down the A60 towards Mansfield and Nottingham.
Councillor Ben Bradley MP (Con), the town’s MP and now the leader of Nottinghamshire County Council, made fixing the junction one of his key pledges when first elected to Parliament in 2017.
He worked with the local authority to draw up a plan to fix the junction, with plans to submit it to the Government’s Pinch Points Fund in 2020.
However, the Pinch Point Fund was scrapped due to the Covid-19 pandemic and no new funding has been allocated for the project.
Speaking during a Westminster Hall debate on ‘transport in Nottinghamshire’ on Wednesday (October 19), which was called by Gedling’s Tory MP Tom Randall, the council leader reignited calls for Government funding.
He said: “On the Sainsbury’s junction, as it’s known locally, I had actually secured the funding to fix it and we worked very hard prior to the pandemic to come up with a workable plan to improve the situation.
“People can queue for 50 minutes to an hour at Christmas just to get out of it and we came up with a plan and submitted it to the Government’s Pinch Points Fund.
“Promptly, we were told we would get the money – the day before the pandemic hit when the money was quite understandably re-prioritised to other things.
“The plan is there, the money was there and if we could get the money to crack on and do it, that would be really important to my constituents.
“I wonder whether the minister knows whether those kinds of pinch point funding opportunities are likely to be revisited?”
Under the improvements, the northbound slip road into Mansfield Leisure Park would be extended to prevent traffic pulling into Sainsbury’s from blocking off cars heading into the town centre.
The plans also include purchasing unused petrol station land from Sainsbury’s, in order to extend the leisure park exit into three lanes.
Katherine Fletcher MP (Con), the Department for Transport’s (DfT) roads minister and under-secretary of state, was Whitehall’s representative in the meeting.
In response to the question, she said: “[Cllr Bradley] will forgive me if I don’t use my debut [in a Westminster Hall debate] to riff Government policies on specific schemes.
“I’m very happy to write to him with a little bit more detail.”
She did not confirm or commit to any similar funding being made available in the future.
But she mentioned previously in the debate that “improving roads, connectivity, enhancing safety and reducing congestion” are important priorities for the DfT.
Speaking after the debate, Cllr Bradley told the Local Democracy Reporting Service: “[The minister] said she’s considering options for pinch points and congestion.
“The Government would never announce something like that being done as it’s too small and local but, since 2020, there have been no funding pots to bid into.
“The aim is to bring something like the Pinch Points Fund that we first got the money from pre-pandemic back into existence.”
Residents living nearby have previously described the junction as a “nightmare” and said they do not know what could be done to improve congestion along the busy road.
