It will cost more than £1m to replace the ageing traffic lights at five major junctions in Preston.

Details of the budgets for each of the projects have been obtained after highways bosses announced when the next sets of works are due to take place.

Lancashire County Council is upgrading the traffic control kit at each of the busy intersections in order to introduce new technology that the authority says will make journeys “more efficient” – and also improve pedestrian safety.

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It has warned the current traffic signals – and the systems that underpin them – are becoming increasingly difficult to maintain because of their ages, which range from the late 1990s to as far back to the 1970s at one of the locations.

The county council last week completed the first of the five upgrade schemes, at the junction between the A6 (Garstang Road/North Road) and Moor Lane.  The LDRS understands that this is currently expected to be the most expensive of the projects, with an anticipated final bill of £300,000.

On the A59, at the junction of Ringway, Church Street and Stanley Street – close to Preston Prison – replacement work is set to begin on 2 March.    The estimated cost of that scheme – which will take between six and eight weeks to complete, with most disruptive elements being completed at night – is £260,000.   It is this location where some of the technology that remains in operation was first installed the best part of half a century ago.

The remaining three projects are all back on the Garstang Road section of the A6.   At the crossroads where the route meets St. George’s Road and Aqueduct Street, the upgrade is scheduled to begin on 3rd March and highways officials have estimated it will cost £120,000.

The installation of new signals at Garstang Road’s more sprawling junction with Blackpool Road, close to Moor Park, has a budget £250,000, while it is expected the improvements at the busy intersection with Black Bull Lane and Sharoe Green Lane – the turn for the Royal Preston – will come with £210,000 price tag.  A start date is yet to be announced for either of the latter two schemes.

Based on current estimates, the total bill for all five projects will amount to £1.14m, although the final figure could yet be higher.

As the LDRS revealed last year, three of the A6 upgrades – at the junctions with Moor Lane, Blackpool Road and Black Bull Lane – had already seen their estimated costs increase by a total of £230,000 compared to when they were first drawn up.

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