Road safety upgrades coming to a Fylde road considered an accident blackspot

Lancashire County Council has earmarked £80,000 to upgrade a section of the A586, Garstang Road, in Larbreck.

A new high-intensity centre line and LED road studs will be introduced on the stretch between the junction with the A585 and Queensgate. The features are designed to reduce collisions caused by a loss of vehicle control or drivers crossing into oncoming traffic.

Red bar markings and new signage - with yellow backing boards - will also be introduced to improve speed management and highlight bends and narrowings along the route. In addition, roadside vegetation will be cut back.

The proposed scheme is one of half a dozen road and cycling safety schemes that have been approved by County Hall’s cabinet. The money for the projects has come from Lancashire’s £6.1m share of the government’s integrated transport grant this year.

That means that the road and cycling safety schemes selected had to be at locations where there had been at least five injury-causing collisions - a minimum of 20 percent of which resulted in death or serious injury - within the last five years.

A report presented to cabinet members stresses that the projects are dependent on the final level of spending incurred during the equivalent programme for 2022/23 and are also subject to delay or cancellation in the event of rising costs, bad weather or the emergence of other priorities.

A total of £1m worth of safety projects was approved Lancashire-wide, while £300,000 was set aside to improve public rights of way across the county. Almost three quarters of the footpath cash will be used to rectify defects as they arise during the year, with the rest reserved for upgrading four already-identified routes.

Meanwhile, £100,000 has been earmarked as part of ongoing work to ensure that bus stops are accessible for disabled people and comply with disability discrimination legislation.

The remainder of the grant cash will be split between three previously agreed commitments - £2.5m in contributions to transport schemes within the Preston and South Ribble City Deal area; £1.25m as the first of four equal tranches of match-funding for County Hall’s successful Levelling Up Fund bid to improve connectivity across East Lancashire; and a £460,000 contribution - of which there will be ten over the decade to 2032 - towards the South Lancaster Growth Catalyst, a raft of transport initiatives to facilitate the delivery of thousands of new homes in that area.

A £491,000 contingency pot has also been agreed in case it is required for match funding, should the county’s bid to the latest round of the Department for Transport's Active Travel Fund be successful.