Traffic mayhem on major Horsham road sparks call for action

Residents living near Rusper Road say that they have endured 18 months of road chaos on the A264 – and it is ‘completely unacceptable.’

The roadworks are being undertaken as part of the new north Horsham development – Mowbray Village – where the first of 2,750 new homes are currently under construction.

Nick Webber, who lives nearby, said: “The people of Horsham and users of the A264 have patiently lived our lives around the various road closures and diversions over the last 18 months while the road has been re-shaped, dug-up, filled-in and dug up again.

"It's involved hundreds of thousands of hours of road users’ time sitting in endless traffic jams – burning thousands of gallons of fuel and polluting the atmosphere.

“I think we all understand that if the North Horsham Development has to be built, then the road system has to change … but how long does it take?

“Diggers and machines are left unused in fenced off areas for days and days with no one working.

"Miles of dual carriageway are coned off for no apparent reason. And now, the latest closures are causing massive tailbacks and disruption to thousands of road users.”

He added: “The roads local to me are clogged up not only with commuters parking all the way down Rusper Road, but queues for the Littlehaven train crossing and now mayhem at the A264 roundabout where it's been closed down to a single lane.

"Even before the north Horsham development roadworks began, this road has always backed-up, even with two lanes filtering onto the roundabout - but now it's just completely unacceptable.”

He said, as an example, it was normally a 1.34 mile journey to and from his home to the new Bohunt School but with road closures and diversions it is now an 8.2 mile journey.

He said he could not understand why some parts of the dual carriageway were still coned off.

West Sussex County Council and landowners Legal and General have been approached for comment.

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