With the Isle of Wight Festival just two weeks away, this in from the council. Ed
Contingency plans are in place to help ensure traffic flows smoothly during the forthcoming Isle of Wight Festival.
The Isle of Wight Council has detailed plans to manage the large influx of traffic and also to put into action should access problems arise or a major incident take place on the Island’s road network.
Traffic management plan
The event’s traffic management plan published today complements the improvements that Solo, the festival organisers, have made to the entrances to its car parks and the new arrangement brought in to designate separate site entrances for Red Funnel and Wightlink traffic.
These changes should help traffic move easily on and off site and also minimise disruption to other road users. It will also help the organisations associated with the event better manage any problems should they develop.
Main routes for festival traffic
The main route for festival traffic from the Red Funnel terminal at East Cowes will be up York Avenue and along Whippingham Road where it will turn right into the Red Festival Car Park. If there are any overly long hold ups on the Whippingham Road plans have been developed to turn festival traffic left on to Alverstone Road where it can be ‘stacked’ and released into the network when the roads to the festival site are less busy.
Vehicles travelling from the Wightlink terminal at Fishbourne will be directed right on to Kite Hill, through Wootton, up Lushington Hill and right at the Racecourse roundabout and the left into the White Festival Car Park.
Alternative suitable parking facilities
Should any of the entrances to the car parks be blocked, or an incident occur on any of the roads being used by festival traffic, agreements have been reached with several private landowners with alternative suitable parking facilities.
Spaces in several of the council’s own car parks will be reserved should traffic need to be diverted off the road network for any reason.
Dedicated traffic spotters
Using traffic management measures successfully developed following last year’s Isle of Wight Festival, the council has arranged for dedicated traffic spotters to be positioned along the main travel routes and known pinch-points.
These people will be able to provide real time information to the council’s event management team so that contingency plans can be quickly activated.
Stuart Love, strategic director for the economy and environment, said:
“We hope that there will be no repeat of last year’s terrible weather, but if the worst does happen we are ready to put our alternative traffic plans into place. The arrangements we have give us the flexibility to keep traffic moving and to get large numbers of vehicles off the road network in a wide variety of scenarios.
“We would like to ask residents to help us by avoiding the designated festival traffic routes on the Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Monday of the event when traffic volumes are at their highest. Maps are available on our website identifying the routes to the festival and all of the contingency arrangements that we have put in place so we would advise residents to plan their routes to avoid the busiest roads.”
Maps and travel information can be found on the council website at www.iwight.com/iwfestival.
