RESIDENTS of Whittlesey are calling for road improvements to be carried out, after being forced to take a detour around the flooded B1040 Whittlesey Wash road for several weeks.

Motorists claim that a gridlocked alternative route along the A605 means the six mile journey into Peterborough can take up to two and a half hours, after they are faced with high volumes of traffic, road works, and broken railway barriers.

Doug Kendall says his wife set off for a journey to Peterborough at 7.15am one morning - and arrived at 9.45am. Doug wants to see a bridge built over the railway line at Kings Dyke. But Roger Neal has another solution in mind - he suggests raising the level of the B1040 to above the flood level.

Doug said this week: “The Whittlesey Wash Road to Thorney has been closed due to flooding for several weeks now, the longest time in living memory of most whom I have spoken to locally.

“For most, the story is the disruption caused to traffic, which now has to use the inadequate alternative provision of the main A605 road: gridlocked most working days.

“An argument, I think, for improvements to this road, and a bridge over railway line, rather than anything to do with the Wash Road, which was designed to flood, so that the rest of us will not.”

Roger Neal said: “We are semi-marooned on Whittlsey Island,” but he believes that building a bridge over the railway at Kings Dyke would be too expensive. “What about spending funds on raising the road surface along the B1040, to above the flood level, the road already has a sound base,” he said. “That would keep the traffic flowing, even in high water.”