Traffic lights planned for major Horsham roundabout

West Sussex County Council is looking to upgrade the Robin Hood roundabout on the A24 to reduce congestion.

The A24 will be widened to increase traffic capacity, a new traffic-light system will help manage peak flows and there will also be improvements for pedestrians and cyclists.

The scheme will:

• Widen the A24 southbound from two lanes to four lanes;

• Widen the A24 northbound from two lanes to three lanes;

• Widen the exit from Warnham Road on to the roundabout;

• Introduce traffic-light control on the A24 approaches to the roundabout and on the Warnham Road;

• Introduce a signalised “Toucan” crossing across the Northbound exit of the A24 (towards A24 Great Daux);

• Improve the footway and cycleway connection from Warnham Road to Robin Hood Lane and the Public Right of Way.

There are likely to be two stages of work, site clearance and utility diversion works in the autumn/winter of 2020/2021 and main construction starting in mid-spring of 2021.

The West of Horsham highway and infrastructure package had an approved budget of £7.08m funded from developer contributions.

Improvements have already been delivered for the Newbridge and Farthings Hill roundabouts, with £2.26m remaining in the pot.

As the budget required for the Robin Hood roundabout is estimated to be £3.77m an extra £1.5m of developer contributions are required.

However council officers have stated that sufficient contributions to meet the shortfall are either already available or anticipated to be collected during the works.

The county council is now set to start a procurement process to find a contractor to deliver the works to the Robin Hood roundabout.

The remaining major scheme in the package is for the A24 Great Daux roundabout, but the delivery of these improvements need to be delayed to a later phase of work.

This is to take into account of the timing of future developer contributions form the North of Horsham development, a new study of the A24 corridor and other potential major developments coming forward in the Horsham area.

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