Bury Council are in the process of introducing bus lane enforcement across the Borough. In itself that is a surprise as I had assumed that as we had bus lanes, they would be enforced somehow!

In any case that is the plan, however as part of that process they plan to amend the hours of operation of the bus lanes so that they all operate at the same times. This means that all 8 bus lanes across the authority will operate from 7am – 10am and 4pm to 7pm monday to saturday.

I must confess that I do not see the logic of operating bus lanes on saturdays, and certainly for the hours proposed. At least 3 buys lanes operate in the Whitefield and Prestwich area. As a Prestwich resident I am pretty familiar with local traffic issues and generally on saturdays traffic is very light from 7 to 10am and builds through the day as people go out and about per their weekend plans, it then seems to tail off a bit at tea time before the evening build up for those going out. This would make a nonsense of the extending the operating hours to saturdays.

I hope that the authority has carried out traffic surveys disproving my observations, but in the meantime if you would like to comment on the proposals you should contact:

Tina Glover, Principal Engineer, Traffic Management and Road Safety Services, PO Box 545, 3 Knowsley Place, Duke Street, Bury BL8 9H, or telephone 0161 253 5855 or email c.i.glover@bury.gov.uk

……And don’t forget to let your local councillors know what you think also!