The redevelopment of the Black Cat roundabout is an enormous engineering project that will allow North/South and East/West traffic flow without having to slow down or stop at the roundabout. Planning consent for the project was granted in August 2022 but a legal challenge initially delayed the works. However, construction finally got underway in December 2023.
With an expected completion date of Spring 2027, the disruption will continue for some time but Richard is a strong supporter of the project and believes the final result will mark a significant improvement to the transport network in the East of his constituency.
Richard has maintained dialogue with National Highways throughout the project duration and visited various sections of the work on several occasions.
Richard has been impressed by the consistent, high-quality communication from National Highways to members of the public about the project. Through well attended information events, a dedicated Facebook page and communication through intermediaries, including Richard, the team have generally done a good job of keeping people informed. This has helped foster understanding among rural communities facing temporary disruption due to construction and traffic diversions.
Regrettably, a significant amount of the goodwill that National Highways had built up was dashed on July 5th 2025. Poor planning around a weekend A1 closure meant a traffic light phasing used for the overnight closure was left unchanged in the day. With much bigger traffic flows during the day, this caused traffic chaos with long tailbacks and some drivers stuck on the A421 for up to 7 hours. The severe disruption moved some road users to take dangerous actions in attempt to circumvent the delays, such as passing children across the central reservation to ‘rescuers’ on the free-flowing opposite carriageway.
Richard immediately requested an urgent meeting with National Highways to understand what went wrong. Following this meeting, it became clear that as well as the failure to change the traffic light phasing there were additional planning and operational failures that contributed to the chaotic incident that day, including:
- No engineer readily available to change the phasing of the traffic lights until late on July 5th.
- Inadequate signage on the A421 and associated road arteries to alert road users of the problems ahead so that they could seek alternative routes.
- Inaccurate information on ‘live’ traffic apps, including National Highways own communications portal, which continued to show tailbacks of only around 30 minutes throughout the day.
- No meaningful interventions by either the police road traffic officers, nor the Skanska (construction company on the project) Traffic Safety and Control Officers (TCSOs), despite both being in attendance throughout the day. Possible actions that could have been taken include:
- Manually closing the A421 to prevent further traffic entering the tailback and potentially creating an opportunity to turn traffic around to exit the A421.
- Over-riding the wrongly phased traffic lights by manually directing traffic at the Black Cat Roundabout to allow more vehicles to exit the A421 onto the A1.
- Opening a section of the central reservation to allow traffic to turn round onto the westbound carriageway.
- Provide food/water and other necessities to those who were stranded.
Richard responded to constituents and shared National Highways’ assessment of what happened that day. Subsequently, Richard has written to the Roads Minister to highlight the problems encountered and suggested improvements to protocols for future major road closures and diversions.
Richard continues to take a keen interest in the project and will continue to raise concerns on behalf of constituents, visit the site and provide regular updates on planned diversions over the course of the next 18 months until completion.
You can read more about Richard’s work on this issue below.
