A long-awaited relief road to cut congestion in Beaconsfield Old Town may not be wide enough to cope with the amount of traffic, a resident fears.

Wilton Park developers Inland Homes have begun construction on phase one of the relief road, which will run from the A40 Pyebush roundabout to Minerva Way, but Old Town resident Simon Woolf says he has measured the width of the new road and thinks it will be too narrow at 7.3 metres wide.

Mr Woolf has now said the county council’s £9.4million section of the road, which will continue from Minerva Way up to near Maxwell Road, would be a “waste of money” if the part built by Inland Homes is “not of sufficient capacity.”

He said: “It looks to me like they are planning to put in a B road as a relief road and I don’t think it is going to be wide enough. It is going to be too narrow for the amount of cars that will be using it.

“If the road is not wide enough, traffic simply will not use it and they will continue using the London End roundabout to get to the A355. It will cause a bottleneck at the Pyebush roundabout.  

“I am pleased that work is going ahead on the road, but I just don’t think it is going to be sufficient.”

To compare, Mr Woolf measured Candlemas Lane in Beaconsfield as 6.1m wide and the A40 to the west of Wycombe End as 9.1m and thinks the latter would be more of a suitable size for the new relief road.

Buckinghamshire Council Transport Cabinet Member Mark Shaw said that officers working on the A355 Improvements Scheme had carried out extensive traffic modelling.

 He said: “All our modelling confirms that a standard 7.3 metre single carriageway will be wide enough for current and future traffic volumes.

“This relief road is something Beaconsfield has been awaiting for many years, and it's great that the southern section has already got planning permission and is going ahead.”

Mark Gilpin of Inland Homes, said the relied road is “hugely important” for the town.

He said: “The good news is that we are on-site building the first phase in line with the detailed planning permission we received nine months ago.  

“Over the last few months we have been working with Bucks County Council to agree all the technical details relating to drainage, lighting and construction, so that our approach to the road, footpaths and cycle routes are fully coordinated along the full length of the road from Maxwell Road to the Pyebush Roundabout.

“These plans were presented to local residents at a consultation event in in April this year."