By Dan Stacey

Copyright expressandstar

The East Park Active Travel link includes better cycling provision, upgraded and safer crossings and improved footpaths along the A454 Willenhall Road between East Park Way and the Deans Road/Stowheath Lane.

Feedback from the consultation will help shape more detailed designs for the plans, and a drop-in event was held at Eastfields Community Centre on Colliery Road, Wolverhampton on Wednesday, September 17.

During the session, members of the public that live locally to the A454 Willenhall Road were encouraged to come in and discuss the plans with council representatives, and to ask any questions they might have about the proposed changes.

Locals Barry and Chris Johnson were some of the first people to come in and discuss the plans, and expressed some doubts about the proposed work.

“It’s a lot clearer now than it was before,” Barry began. “You can look at it online but seeing it in person makes it clearer and has given us some insight into it.”

Barry’s wife Chris added: “Personally I think it’s a lot of inconvenience for what’s going to be a little benefit.

“As pedestrians we’re not going to get much benefit. Cyclists may do, but I still don’t think they’ll use it that much around here.

“There’s a lot of people we know that catch the bus, either into Wolverhampton or to Willenhall, and after these changes there’ll still be the same problems for them.

“It’ll still be exactly the same, but now we’ll have all this inconvenience.

“It’s one of those things. We know that over the next 10, 15 or 20 years that this area is going to change completely.”

Mr Johnson did admit that he experiences problems with the road in it’s current form, but doubted how much these changes would improve life for himself and other pedestrians trying to get to Wolverhampton.

“I’ll put it this way, if I want to go to Wolverhampton I have to pick my times,” he said. “There’s no good going at 9am, and if there’s issues on the roads I don’t bother going. It’s a waste of time, you can’t get to town.

“That’s going to get worse not better with this.

“We aren’t happy with it, but we’ll have to put up with it because we aren’t going to be able to stop it.

“There are a lot of younger ones coming up that might want to ride their bikes so this could be great for them, but for me personally it isn’t going to do anything other than cause more hassle.

“I’ve lived here for 74 years now, and all I’ve done is move from one side of the road to the other. I won’t be going anywhere else.

Council representative Tim Philpot fielded several questions throughout the afternoon, and despite some pushback remained confident about the plans which he hopes will be brought to life within the next two years.

“We want to create a continuous cycle route along the road as part of the scheme, with better connections to the residential areas either side of it,” Tim said. “Obviously, people have different views on it depending on what their personal circumstances are, and we know many people will want us to keep the traffic flow as stable as possible, which we intend to do.

“We don’t want to disrupt traffic flow significantly, but we do want to provide better pedestrian facilities so they can cross the road more easily, and we want to make it a realistic possibility for people to make safe cycle journeys which is why we’re putting these features in.

“We’re aware that cyclists consider it a dangerous road to cycle along and there isn’t much to make it safer at the moment, but we also understand pedestrians are concerned about crossing the road.

“Assuming this consultation goes as well as we hope, we’re aiming to start building the project in the autumn of 2026, and it should be a 12-month construction.”