New traffic lights are planned at a ‘dangerous’ Salford junction in a near £1m revamp
Gridlocked traffic and kids ‘weaving through’ cars to cross the road – this is the daily reality for many who use the junction of Bury Old Road and Singleton Road.
It sits on the boundary of three councils, Bury, Manchester, and Salford, and has become a major concern for the community.
The road is a key route for cars travelling between Prestwich and Manchester city centre, and those driving into other parts of Salford.
Salford council said there have been six collisions at the junction between August 2019 and 2024, one of which was serious.
Plans have been mooted to fix the road in a scheme which could cost £900,000 in total.
It includes building a traffic island on Bury Old Road, new controlled crossing points with traffic lights, wider footways for pedestrians, and changes to the landscaping.
A Salford council report explained: ‘It has been identified this route has a history of collisions at the junction, with high pedestrian footfall largely made up of children and the elderly.
‘Representations regarding the junction have been received from the local MP, ward members and the public, mostly concerned with safety issues.
‘The junction currently operates on a priority basis, with no control of traffic flows or pedestrian facilities.
‘The junction improvement scheme aims to upgrade to traffic signals to allow for improvement to pedestrian facilities.’
Subject to approval, work at the junction could start in July and finish in November.
In April last year, more than 30 residents gathered for a meeting at Salford town hall to discuss the problems at the junction.
Some claimed the traffic was so bad that it left them unable to get off their own driveways, and others warned there were no safe places for families to cross.
“It’s one of the few junctions in the city that does not have appropriate pedestrian facilities and it does create a lot of congestion,” Shoaib Mohammad, Salford council’s director of infrastructure, said at the April 2025 meeting.
He added: “There’s no pedestrian facility and there’s a huge amount of pedestrians crossing this every time, cyclists and prams, it’s a constant flaw.
“I’ve witnessed buggies and prams weaving through traffic, it’s a dangerous situation.”
Some residents at the meeting last year raised concerns about putting in new traffic lights, claiming it can take up to 15 minutes to get through the queue of cars on Singleton Road.
One said: “The issue of traffic covers approximately one to one and a half hours a day from Monday to Thursday, traffic lights will obstruct traffic and slow down travel for the rest of the day, which will be very annoying, and locals are extremely keen to avoid this.”
Another added: “There are three or four houses right by [the junction], that’s going to be a nightmare. When there were temporary lights it was impossible to get out of our driveways.”
The council’s highways engineer accepted that traffic lights would ‘not get rid of the queues overnight,’ but he explained that it would allow cars to use the junction safely, and make it easier for pedestrians to cross the road.
