A MAJOR £6.1m scheme to widen and effectively bypass a bottleneck roundabout on a main road into Barnsley has had to be abandoned due to the discovery of dangerous former mine workings, the Chronicle has learned.
The Westwood roundabout at Tankersley, where the A61 Westwood New Road crosses the A616 Stocksbridge bypass, was due to be turned into a ‘hamburger’ style roundabout.
This would have included widening of the roundabout to add extra lanes, and a new road controlled by traffic lights would have carved through the middle of the roundabout, meaning traffic heading to and from Barnsley along the A61 would be able to go straight ahead without having to negotiate the roundabout at all.
All of the approaches to the junction and roundabout would also have been widened as part of the scheme which got underway almost two years ago.
But the Chronicle has learned this week that the scheme is no longer going ahead because of the discovery of former mine workings which were in a dangerous state of repair.
Read more in this weeks Barnsley Chronicle
