A1 - A17 - A46 Comments

The congestion around this junction at 2pm on a Friday was a sight to behold last week. As always, this is a epitome of the British planning disease... too much in too small a space.

The congestion around this junction could be alleviated if the proposed link from Farndon to the A1 south of Newark is built. This could mean that traffic heading to/from the A46 south of Newark would miss out the Winthorpe junction.

One of the problems with this junction is the bushes etc on the roundabout. If you are trying to join the traffic in a lorry you cannot see cars on the roundabout till it is too late. Sometimes you have to push your way out which is not appreciated by car drivers.

The junction's a nuisance - the A1 southbound off slip is regularly backed up onto the southbound carriageway, and the A46 northbound is regularly queued back a fair distance. It may have worked when it was just the A1 Newark bypass crossing the A46 through Newark, but adding the A46 Newark bypass and link up the A17 throwing in the roundabouts to make the thing work just puts too many conflicting movements in. When going A1 to A17 or vice versa I usually take the old A17/A1 junction to avoid things...

Yes, the junction further down with Beacon Hill Road/Beckingham Road is the old A17. Taking A17 traffic out of Newark centre is a good idea, but for A17 <> A1 South traffic it is much more direct than going to Winthorpe and back down the A1. Though it does pass through the East end of Newark which is why (I suspect, I don't often use that bit of A17) it probably wouldn't be signed.

It wasn't even a proper parclo. Where the two roundabouts now are, there were originally gaps in the central reservation of the A46 (noting that the present B6166 was then the westward A46). Thus traffic between the Lincoln and Retford directions (in either direction) or between the Newark and London directions (again in either direction) had to turn through the gaps. Fortunately, none of these moves were very common as traffic between Lincoln and the north would use the A57, and between London and Newark would use the junction between the original A17 and the Newark bypass further south.

Personally, I don't think it's overly bad. It's just (originally) a dumbell with characteristically tight slip roads - as is common on the A1 at Newark (like the old A17 junction further down) and Grantham (with the A52) and probably would have been fine with just the A46 and A1.

The Newark bypass (which is a 1990s invention) was plugged into the junction as the A46 and A17, and isn't being dualled as part of the current works as far as I know.

The only issue I can see is the fact that the traffic from Newark (which the bypass largely alleviates) as well as that now coming from Kings Lynn is convergent on two roundabouts which may want to turn onto the A1. Other than flattening the whole thing and starting again - which is difficult with the land take - there isn't particularly much which could be altered. The A46 is banked up above the flood plain and the A17 passes an airfield quite closely. There are possibly worse junctions in Notts which are freeflow, the A453/A52 especially southbound with lanes crossing over each other at 50 mph (was NSL) a prime example. This one is just a junction which has had one extra road added to it and the existing ones improved.

Not to mention that the A17 was diverted to, er, plug into this junction - the next junction south on the A1, with an unclassified road, is the former A17 which used to meet the A46 at a traffic-light junction near Northgate station. Talk about piling Ossa on top of Pellion ...