RIGHT turns into a pub and supermarket on Priory Crescent are set to be temporarily banned in a radical move to ease traffic problems at Cuckoo Corner.

Speaking at a cabinet meeting on Thursday, Kevin Buck councillor responsible for highways and parking said right turns into Aldi and the Saxon King pub had wrongly been allowed during the planning process.

Labour councillors Daniel Cowan and Lydia Hyde have been calling on the council for the notorious Cuckoo Corner to be overhauled to cut bottlenecks.

However, Mr Buck has revealed that making changes on Priory Crescent could be effective without carrying out major works at Cuckoo Corner.

He said: “The focus is around Priory Crescent and seeing if it has any impact on Cuckoo Corner itself which I and others suspect it does. So it’s only right we look at all options close to Cuckoo Corner that may be affecting it.

“The report recommends we look at all aspects in Priory Crescent before we look at spending what could be large sums of money trying to tinker with Cuckoo Corer that may not have the desired effect.”

The council’s cabinet agreed a trial scheme to restrict westbound right turns from Priory Crescent into Aldi and the Saxon King Pub.

As a result, traffic will be forced to go around the roundabout back into Priory Crescent to turn left into the supermarket and pub.

Mr Buck added: “Priory Crescent is definitely having an impact on the issues at Cuckoo Corner and Manners Way.

“When the hospice went in councillors insisted on, as part of the planning application for the hospice, that there was no right turns in Priory Crescent heading west bound for exactly the reason that we’re now experiencing with the supermarket and the Saxon King pub and that is west bound traffic queuing and waiting to turn right preventing traffic flowing in both directions so the recommendations address that on a temporary basis to gather that important data.”

Steve Aylen, non-aligned councillor for Belfairs ward was permitted to address the cabinet. He said: “I’m well aware that a lot of work has gone into this and our officers have worked very hard.

“The fact that traffic can’t flow through the middle of Southend, backs up from the A127 onto the Fairway, Bellhouse Lane, Elmsleigh Drive and Eastwood Road then jams up the A13. We need to look at the whole ripple effect”