Ipswich: CityFibre in Colchester Road during Suffolk Show

CityFibre set up four-way temporary traffic lights earlier this week at the junction of Colchester Road and Sidegate Lane as it is upgrading broadband across the town.

The works are set to remain in place until Monday, June 12.

But this helped cause delays in Ipswich after the two-day Suffolk Show at Trinity Park on Wednesday and Thursday last week, with some drivers saying they had lengthy journeys home after the event.

The works in Sidegate Lane (Image: Charlotte Bond)

Suffolk County Council, which is responsible for county's road network, said the CityFibre works were given the green light as it was during the half-term break and highways teams wanted to minimise impact.

Paul Geater, an EADT and Ipswich Star journalist who lives in north-west Ipswich, worked at the show and ended driving through Great Bealings to avoid the gridlock to get home.

He said: "It's always bad getting away from the showground after the show. It wasn't much of a problem until I got to St Augustine's Church.

"It was only when I hit Woodbridge Road that I realised what was happening.

"I said to people at the show 'who approved this?'

"I get that they try to to minimise disruption due to school half-term, but why did they not start it on the Friday? It didn't make any sense.

"One thing I am keen to stress is that I don't put this down to the people at the Suffolk Show."

John Taylor, director of the Suffolk Show, said drivers were able to access the site freely – but said he was not aware of any traffic issues in Ipswich itself.

Suffolk Show director John Taylor with his wife Julia (Image: Charlotte Bond)

He said: "We identified queuing as a problem. If you go to any event like this, there are queues to get in.

"We have to accept there are things going on around us that we can't influence.

"We did everything we can. One of the things we did was offer free parking to get congestion away from the site.

"Generally, we didn't have many comments about the traffic. We wanted to make it as streamlined as possible.

"We wrote to attendees to say that roadworks were going on and to come early if possible.

"I thought it would be a problem, but people getting through the gate was fine. But I don't know about the rest of Ipswich."

A spokesman for Suffolk County Council said: "CityFibre is carrying out some essential works to bolster connectivity and strengthen broadband for Ipswich.

"The works at this junction have been planned to take place to maximise the school holidays window when traffic is lighter.

"Following discussion with Suffolk Show organisers we were satisfied that their plans to signpost traffic out of town via the A1156 would help avoid unnecessary traffic in the centre.

"We also put conditions on CityFibre to ensure the traffic lights are manually controlled during peak hours to avoid build up of traffic in both directions."

Neil Madle, partnership manager at CityFibre, said: "The works on Colchester Road are part of our £30million digital transformation project in Ipswich.

"We are upgrading the town’s slower and less reliable legacy infrastructure with the best available connectivity, full fibre.

"As our network is rolled out across the town, full fibre services will gradually go live in different neighbourhoods, at which point residents and businesses can access lightning fast and highly reliable broadband services.

"The network will also bring a range of economic benefits to the town as full fibre boosts productivity and innovation for local businesses.

"This is a major infrastructure project, and we are in close contact with Suffolk County Council and adhering to all permits while we deliver these essential works.

"We would like to apologise for any inconvenience caused and assure residents that any short-term disruption will pay off tremendously in the long-term."