The number of concurrent roadworks in Salford has led to a national traffic cone shortage, SalfordOnline.com can reveal.
Now Urban Vision, who manage traffic on behalf of Salford City Council, are having to import cones from overseas to deal with the shortfall.
Oldfield Road, a key commuter cut-through between Chapel Street and Regent Road, remains closed until the end of May, and Broughton Road in Pendleton remains closed until July as Network Rail work on the road-over-rail bridges to electrify the train line between Manchester and Preston.
Read: Oldfield Road to close for 7 months
Read: Broughton bridge closure causing traffic chaos
Their latest planned roadworks, a three-week closure of Fitzwarren Street on Salford precinct to build a new pedestrian crossing, has used up the final few in Salford’s stores.
And with Transport for Greater Manchester using up dwindling supplies for roadworks along the A580 East Lancs Road for the Leigh Guided Busway, and Peel building the new A57 link road towards Port Salford, there are now simply not enough cones to go around.
Traffic cones are subject to a 6.5% import tax, along with a 17% sales tax, which means the imports could lead to a multi-million pound shortage in already-strained council budgets.
One readers posted on Facebook: “Typical Salford Council, always wasting taxpayers’ money on crazy schemes.”
And the council has been forced to call for a ‘cone amnesty’ to try to get Salford University students to return the thousands of traffic cones stolen from local roads every year.
Over the next three weeks students will be able to hand in their cones anonymously at a series of specially-designed bins placed at Swinton Civic Centre, Eccles, Swinton and Walkden Gateway and at Turnpike House on Eccles Old Road.
An spokesman from the Council has told SalfordOnline.com: “We don’t want to spend our money on this but sadly it’s a necessity.
“Every council south of Birmingham has had to go without due to the sheer number of incidents that happen in Greater Manchester, especially in Salford.
“This is a safety issue at the end of the day.
“We are also asking people to get involved in making their own streets safer by joining the council to make your own traffic cone.
“You can use absolutely anything to make your own.”
