Outraged motorists call for end of traffic chaos on Southampton's roads

That is the message from outraged motorists who are calling for an end to two years' of chaos on Southampton's roads.

City transport chief Jacqui Rayment is facing fresh calls to stand down having been accused of poor planning and management of major works, and “treating the electorate with contempt”.

But the defiant transport boss has hit back, claiming she does not know what she has done wrong, other than oversee major investment in a series of road improvement schemes.

Cllr Rayment - dubbed the “cabinet member for congestion” by opponents - will face tough questions over her position at a meeting tonight, but has vowed to fight on.

She said: “What have I done wrong? If people want to have a pop at me that is their prerogative. But I am focussed on my job which is to make Southampton a better place to live and work.”

Repair work at Northam Bridge, which is expected to last 20 weeks and has caused hour-long for drivers, is just the latest in a string of major works that have caused disruption in the past two years.

Cllr Rayment dismissed criticism that the over running works and problems with some projects were the result of poor planning.

Queuing traffic in Southampton City Centre

“That is just rubbish. We meet every week with the contractors. When you start taking up the network that is hundreds of years old you will inevitably have some unforeseen issues. I have already apologised for where things have been held up.”

She said that Southampton had been lucky in securing funding for a range of projects to improve “pinch points” in the city but that the money needed to be spent by the end of March.

She also rejected claims she was unsympathetic to drivers stuck in the jams saying she and her family used the roads themselves so was well aware of the impact - but the alternative without investment would be to shut roads permanently.

Cllr Jacqui Rayment

But motorists, businessmen, councillors and cabbies are all calling for major change.

Roger Meikle, managing director of professional hygiene cleaning firm Progiene, based on Floating Bridge Road, said his travel time to work from Warsash had gone from 22 minutes to 50 minutes.

He said: “My staff who have school-run commitments are held up in it all and just cannot get to work on time, which has a big impact on our trade counter.

“Customers cannot come in and it has an impact on the business. It's appalling - it's never ending.”

Conservative opposition boss Royston Smith, who has described Cllr Rayment as the “cabinet member for congestion”, said: “The point when you know things could have been handled better is when lessons haven't been learned from the previous incidents.

“There was chaos for Platform Road, chaos for Itchen Bridge, chaos for Central Bridge, chaos when a manhole cover needed replacing and now we have chaos for Northam Bridge.

“I don't think she takes the job seriously, she is arrogant and treats the electorate with contempt.”

Cllr Royston Smith

Businessman Dave Hemsley is setting up an online petition calling for Cllr Rayment to stand down, saying: “My main concern is that she does not have any empathy with motorists.

“I don't know how much longer the motorists of Southampton are going to tolerate the incompetence we have suffered over the last two years.”

Fellow commuter Patricia Cannon says her journey time has increased 45 minutes, saying: “it's awful, I'm exasperated by it.

“Somebody's got to be accountable for this.”

Cabbie Ian Hall, chairman of the Southampton Hackney Association, described the traffic as “unbelievable” but added it was “not all Cllr Rayment's fault”, laying some of the blame with the council's highways team and contractor Balfour Beatty.

Fellow taxi driver Perry McMillan, chairman of the Southampton cab section of Unite, said: “We want to let the public know we're as frustrated as them - we don't want to be sat around in traffic with the meter on either.”

Panel: The works on Northam Bridge follow a project to widen Platform Road and Town Quay into a dual carriageway which brought gridlock to the city centre on three occasions, with some motorists forced to leave their vehicles to relieve themselves.

A new cycle-friendly junction was installed on the western side of the Itchen Bridge, but some say it has caused delays of up to 15 minutes.

There were further delays as work on Central Bridge took three months longer than anticipated while a broken drain cover in Millbrook Road West brought the city to a standstill for five hours in November.

A further £560,000 project to replace bearings and joints in the road surface of Vicarage Bridge, the eastern extension of Itchen Bridge, will take place over the summer.

A report by insurance firm Direct Line revealed that traffic in the city moves just 2mph faster in peak times than in the heart of London, with the city ranked tenth slowest out of 49 UK cities.

The figures were dismissed by transport group Sustrans, which said the city's traffic flow would improve once schemes such as Platform Road were completed.