An end to borough’s traffic problems?

Dorset County Council's Matthew Piles, the man in charge of building Weymouth's £79 million relief road, said the authority was holding talks with Budmouth Technology College about a park-and-ride site for 3,000 spaces, roughly 20 per cent more than all current parking spaces in the whole of Weymouth town centre.

He explained: "We are fortunate to have a good rail network to London Waterloo which takes care of the east of the county - but what about the west?

"We want to have an environmentally friendly green Olympic Games but the reality is that a lot of people will be coming here by car. Our job is to get them out from behind the wheel and either walking or on to a bus or a bicycle.

"To do that we have to give them somewhere they can leave their car and up to 15,000 spaces in a number of giant park-and-ride sites - including a possible 3,000-space site at Budmouth - are among ideas we are looking at."

Budmouth principal David Akers said: "We helped with the 2012 Olympic bid by producing posters so as soon as we heard we had won we were delighted and wanted to continue to play a part in the preparations for 2012.

"We hit on the idea of offering ourselves as a park-and-ride site using our hard standing areas and perhaps some of the playing fields.

"We are all part of the wider Weymouth and Portland community and we felt we could make this contribution towards helping with the Olympics."

A crucial consideration for all bus, train, car and other transport measures was allowing residents to lead normal lives while they were being carried out, said Mr Piles.

He added: "To do this, we plan to help residents and businesses who may find they can't park where they usually do by providing them with designated parking points to be decided on. Providing an improved transport system is not a lot of effort for a few weeks when the eyes of the world are on us because we are staging the Olympic sailing events. It is about providing benefits for residents for decades to come and consulting them before projects are agreed."

Things were still evolving, he said, so if something didn't work it would not be put forward.

He added: "For instance, there were widespread rumours that we were going to put traffic lights on every roundabout such as Foord's Corner at Wyke Regis.

"That rumour was true but it was only an idea and an idea that we did not believe would work at Foord's so we scrapped it. We do feel it has possibilities for the Kings and Harbour roundabouts which are recognised bottlenecks and so we are taking an even closer look at this idea but we have not definitely decided to go ahead with it yet."

Another idea being considered is to create a large landscaped roundabout half way down King Street at the junction with Queen Street while removing its traffic lights, he said.

He added: "This would allow buses to reach the railways station, traffic flows could control themselves and it would be a crucial improvement at the gateway to Weymouth where rail meets road.

"We are also looking at a vastly bigger junction system at the top of King Street where vehicles arrive over the Swannery Bridge.

"This will largely control and ease movement from the Swannery car park, from the Jubilee Sidings retail park and from Commercial Road.

"When you think about it, it is the first thing you meet when you arrive in Weymouth town centre and all too often that point is a queue.

"We want to stop this and get traffic flowing. This new junction, which would be part of the £18 million Olympic Transport Package, should do that and help public transport as well."

He added that a third roundabout was being looked at for the Boot Hill corridor from North Quay to Rodwell.

Mr Piles said: "Here we want to set up a system from the Asda supermarket to Rodwell which will allow public transport to have priority, improve traffic flows and improve air quality. Buxton Road bridge could be widened as part of this to improve pedestrian safety and give better two-way traffic flows."

Another change could come because the new Chickerell link road was working so well, he said.

He added: "We now need to consider whether all the traffic lights from the Granby Industrial Estate to Lynch Lane are needed or whether we can take them out.

"Another example of changing existing flows could be at the All Saints Church junction on Lanehouse Rocks Road. Currently Wyke Road traffic has priority and those cars wishing to get to Wyke Regis must wait and turn right across the flow past the church.

"We want to switch this around so that these cars have the right of way while a junction would contain Wyke Road traffic."

Mr Piles said that the county council knew there was no more road space and that Weymouth traffic was increasing year on year, so they had to look at managing traffic within the constraints of the existing system.

He added: "We have a very good public transport system but we are lacking in certain facilities such as bus information that passengers can see instantly and rely on. We also need the same sort of information so motorists can see where spaces are available in which car parks.

"Overall, Weymouth and Portland deserves a good transport system and we must all work to try and provide one."