a483 Aquaplaning Spot Warning

The last couple of days has seen a massive downpour for most of the UK, and Wrexham has been suffering to. This morning and afternoon two Wrexham.com’ers drove around to find any issues due to the bad weather, and despite the downpours there was very little in terms of problems.

One that did show up was a massive spot of water draining across the A483 carriageway on the northbound side, just after the road goes under the Doddleston Lane bridge. We have used the picture above to illistrate where, which was taken by Google Streetview in sunnier times! It appears there could be a drain on the left, which could be the cause of it.

This is not the first time such a spot has appeared, and regular travellers on the A483 are likely aware of the trouble spot. We can certainly recall inside the last twelve months a car leaving the road there in bad weather. Standing water on roads causes an effect known as ‘aquaplaning’ , where a layer of water builds up between a tyre and a road resulting in a loss of grip meaning anything that the tyre is meant to do – be it traction, steering or braking – will have no effect.

We are raising this issue on our site to alert travellers on the road, plus will be sending this to both Wrexham and Cheshire highways to alert them as its been a long term dangerous issue that has not been dealt with.

We have had reports of minor road flooding in Marchwiel, and rain is collecting on the verges of roads around town. In Saltney the rail bridge on High St was flooded several inches deep, and in Broughton rainwater was coming up through grids rather than down them!