Wyboston Ward Cllr Tom Wootton has hit out Highway England for setting out indecipherable plans to amend the Black Cat roundabout.

Writing to the Times & Citizen, Cllr Wootton said the current consultation on the roundabout, as well as a new dual-carriageway to Caxton Gibbet, is too complex and does not make it clear how the road network will be amended should the plans go ahead.  His letter is reproduced below:

‘The Black Cat junction where the A1 and A421 meet is a national disgrace. The agony for residents and road users, caused by constant congestion, has gone on for too long; who is to blame is easy point scoring.

‘Works are plainly thirty years overdue. At last we have funding for a new road to Cambridge and a long-term solution for the Black Cat roundabout and I have yet to meet anyone who does not want this work started tomorrow rather than by the proposed start of 2020. 

‘Even though a new road has been promised for so long and we are totally desperate for this crime against common sense to end, that does not mean that we will accept any old rubbish as consultation.  The fact we have had so many meetings, false dawns and cancelations with the Highways Agency makes the botched publicity even worse. 

‘The plans I have seen contain three options, a few lines of explanation on each and a line drawing that I really defy anyone to explain, especially as the text did not seem to me to match the pictures. Even a senior architect and another road engineer could not tell me if there were going to be two flyovers, one or none. 

‘If residents are going to be living next to a spaghetti junction then perhaps we would like to comment.  Highways England, please do better.’