YOU don’t need me to tell you traffic in Warrington isn’t good.

In fact, it’s pretty bad.

I have to drive through the centre of town to get to and from work and apart from during the school holidays, Bridge Foot is a bit of nightmare in the morning and evening rush hours.

And even the word ‘hour’ in rush hour is a misnomer.

It’s not unusual to get stuck in bad traffic on Wilderspool Causeway or Chester Road any time between 4pm and 6.30pm.

Good luck if you work in Birchwood and live in Penketh. You probably spend more time in your car than is good for your health.

And heaven help us if there’s a problem on one of the motorways.

My current record is more than three hours to get from Northwich to just west of the town centre after an accident on Thelwall Viaduct turned Warrington into one big car park. It’s not an experience I care to repeat.

I fully realise we live in a big and fairly successful town with all the benefits and disadvantages that brings and maybe we may just have to suck it up, as our American cousins say.

And yet I feel there are things that could be done to help (or more accurately, I think there are things that aren’t being done which are adding to the problems).

Now I don’t claim to be any kind of traffic management expert but it really feels that the traffic lights settings at major junctions in and around the town have a default setting of ‘irritating’.

Try going round the Bridge Foot gyratory and see what I mean. You can sit and watch the lights go through all their sequences time and again and not move. When you do actually get through the lights, you can bet your mortgage you will be stopped at the next set, and then the next set.

The Cockhedge roundabout brings its own special problems and feels like it was designed by the Marquis de Sade.

Have you ever tried getting off Midland Way either with the part-time traffic lights? It’s no joke.

So my first plea to the highway planners at Warrington Borough Council is: Please sort out the town’s traffic lights.

And we also have the second problem of the disappearing road markings.

Just when was the last time the people responsible for lane markings took a look at the state of some of the town’s busiest and most difficult to navigate junctions?

The state of Crosfields roundabout is an absolute disgrace and has now reached the stage where it is dangerous even if you know where you are going.

Ironically, while white paint seems to be in short supply, there doesn’t seem to be a shortage of yellow paint – just have a look at the state of Priestley Street at the back of the hospital.

One final point. As bad as the the lights and absence of road markings may be, I think a little more enforcement may not be a bad thing.

The whole point of box junctions is to help avoid gridlock. The rules are clear – you don’t enter the yellow hatched area unless your exit is clear.

It’s time, I think, for our police to start enforcing that law.

n I fully realise that beauty is in the eye of the beholder and in my view, the new multi-story car park that dominates the town centre skyline is becoming more ugly by the day.

If gold hexagons weren’t bad enough we are now being confronted by cladding that wouldn’t be out of place on a lavatory wall.

As one disgruntled person said on social media, the car park looks like it has been dropped in place from the 1970s.

I couldn’t agree more.

n I’m glad to see there is some semblance of unity in the fight to stop the Western Link bypass being built with the formation of a new combined group. What a pity that it has been banned from posting on the ‘orange route’ Facebook page.

Perhaps not so united after all.