Section of grid road that's been closed for months re-opens this week in Milton Keynes - but drivers are not happy

Council contractors have been busy since last year building a new underpass, roundabout and pedestrian crossings are on the V4 grid road between Whitehouse and Two Mile Ash.

The work is designed to make crossing the road safer for residents in the 6,550 new homes that will eventually be built in MK's Western Expansion Area.

But its complexity meant a chunk of the V4 had to remain closed for the duration.

Yesterday (Monday) it re-opened at the H3 Monks Way/Calverton Lane site,near Fairfields.

And the underpass site linking Two Mile Ash and Whitehouse is almost complete and will be open to traffic again "very soon", promised the council.

But the announcement did not get the desired reception on social media.

"Traffic lights? What total and utter rubbish," said one protester. " If they've taken all this time to dig an underpass, why the hell would people need to cross a main road above surface? This will cause a nightmare,"

Another said: "What was the point of running a consultation offering people the choice of underpass, footbridge and a crossing and then completely ignoring the vast majority?

"If the council never had any intention of doing anything else, why waste money on a sham? Kids will start to think it is okay to cross grid roads and won’t just do it where the crossing is. Which councillor or council officer will accept responsibility when the first accident happens?"

Other people thought a simple roundabout would have sufficed.

"We are the city known for its roundabouts and they generally work so well. So what do MK council do? Put in traffic lights (that so many already jump red lights around the city) pedestrian crossing and an underpass, staggering stupidity. It should have been an underpass to keep people safe and a roundabout to keep traffic flowing," wrote one resident.

Councillor Emily Darlington, cabinet member for public realm, said at the start of the works: “This is a major and complex construction scheme, and we’ve worked with a number of different services and utility providers to make sure essentials like water and gas are looked after carefully.

“I’m pleased the project is on track to be completed on time, and that we’ve been able to create a new safe pedestrian crossing for local people.”

In fact, the scheme was meant to be completed in Spring, but was delayed due to Covid-19 safety measures.

An MK Council spokesman said the building of the new underpass was "a major engineering project", requiring significant excavation.

Services such as telecommunications, gas and water needed to be diverted, and the road had to be closed for its whole length to allow safe access for workers and utility providers.

The spokesman said: "We looked at an option to build a temporary road to maintain access. The cost of this would have been approx. £600,000 and the road would still have had to be closed for three months to complete these works.

"After much consideration, this was rejected based on the need to still have a road closure for utility works and the costs.To keep the site safe we took the difficult decision to temporarily close the V4 underpass site."