A54 road
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 A54 road near Buxton in Derbyshire | |
| Route information | |
| Maintained by Cheshire County Council | |
| Length | 41.9 mi (67.4 km) |
| Major junctions | |
| west end |  A51Tarvin 53°11′42″N 2°46′36″W / 53.19513°N 2.77679°W |
 A556 A49 A5018 A533 A530  J18 → M6 Motorway  A50 A534 A34 A50 A527 A523 A537 | |
| east end |  A53Buxton 53°14′44″N 1°56′24″W / 53.24555°N 1.94012°W |
| Location | |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Primary destinations | Congleton Winsford |
| Road network | |
The A54 road is a road in England linking Chester in Cheshire with Buxton in Derbyshire. Its route through both urban and steep rural areas presents a challenge to Cheshire County Council in maintaining the safety of the road. Many years ago it was the main East-West Route in Cheshire The importance of the A54 through Middlewich and Winsford was decreased in the 1970s/1980s with the building of the M56 and dualling of the A556 at Northwich. Now it serves mainly as a local route but does still cater for some long distance traffic wanting to avoid the congested parts of the A556 at Northwich and A51 at Nantwich.
History
Re-routing of the A54 away from the narrow cobbled streets of Congleton town centre was first proposed in 1935. Prior to this, at the point where the A34 now converges with the A54 an unusual 28 ft (8.5 m) lighthouse was erected in 1924 bearing the words "Dangerous hill - change to low gear", backlit at night, to reduce accidents at the sharp bend.[1]
According to a 2007 report by the Road Safety Foundation for the European Road Assessment Programme (EuroRAP), the A54 is one of the most dangerous roads in the UK, second only to the A682 in Lancashire.[2]
Again in 2008 the road was rated as one of the highest-risk roads in Great Britain by EuroRAP, with a risk rating of Medium to High on its most dangerous stretch between Buxton and Congleton. Eighteen fatal or serious-injury accidents occurred on this 24-kilometre (15 mi) stretch of single-carriageway road between 2003 and 2005, 26% of which were accidents at junctions.[3]
Route
The road begins at a roundabout on the A51 near Tarvin, 5 miles (8.0 km) east of Chester. It is a single carriageway for almost its entire length, travelling west-east. The first town is Winsford, where the road takes a short section of dual carriageway through the town centre; unusually the suburbs have been bypassed while the main road runs directly along the High Street. In Winsford it crosses the River Weaver on a large roundabout having two bridges over the river.
After passing through Middlewich the A54 crosses over the M6 Motorway on a conventional roundabout interchange, through Holmes Chapel to Congleton where it has a short overlap with the A34. The road then becomes more rural in character as it crosses into Derbyshire, passing through the Peak District National Park and ending on a junction with the A53 on the edge of Buxton.
List of settlements
The road passes through or immediately adjacent to many towns and villages on its length. Only those with their own Wikipedia article are included here, listed in the order they appear along the road travelling west-east.
- Tarvin
- Kelsall
- Over
- Winsford
- Wharton
- Middlewich
- Sproston
- Holmes Chapel
- Brereton
- Somerford
- Congleton
- Bosley
- Buxton
See also
References
- ^ Stephens, W.B. (1970). History of Congleton. Manchester University Press. p. 109. Retrieved 4 July 2015.
- ^ "'Most dangerous' roads revealed". bbc.com. 25 June 2007.
- ^ "GB Tracking Survey Results" Archived 10 February 2012 at the Wayback Machine. EuroRAP. 30 June 2008.
Roads in Zone 5 of the Great Britain road numbering scheme | ||
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