BRIGG TRAFFIC DELAYS ON A18 THIS WEEK PROMPT MEMORIES OF PAST DECADES

The completion of Anglian Water's emergency mains replacement project in Brigg on Wednesday afternoon (February 23) ended two and a half days' delays for drivers using the A18 on Wrawby Street and adjoining roads, with four-way temporary traffic lights in operation.
These hold-ups will have reminded older Brigg residents of the years before the M180 opened in the late 1970s.
Until this new road arrived the A18 carried ALL traffic between Doncaster/Scunthorpe/Lincoln and Immingham/Killingholme/Grimsby.
Heavy lorries and tankers rumbled down Bigby Street and Wrawby Street, through the Market Place and over the County Bridge.
Even the opening of the M180 did not solve the entire problem posed by heavy traffic, as it was some years before the connecting 'link road'  was built from Briggate Lodge roundabout, Broughton, to south of Redbourne.
Until this connecting link was added, many HGVs were still driven through Brigg.
It's true that there are more vehicles on UK roads today than was the case in the 1960s and 1970s.
But the A18 in Brigg used to be very busy throughout these decades. Any local roadworks created chaos as our County Bridge was then the only way of crossing the River Ancholme for lorries, unless they went via South Ferriby on the A1077 (a lengthy detour).
Brigg Sugar Factory was still going strong in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s with trucks and tractor-hauled trailers delivering its raw materials from farms over a huge area.
This was the era of 'bouncing beet' when pedestrians on town centre pavements sometimes encountered lumps which had parted company with vehicles on their way to the factory in Scawby Brook.
The inner by-pass in the early 1990s saw a new Ancholme Way Bridge installed, with through traffic diverted along upgraded Barnard Avenue. Town centre pedestrianisation then followed.
Had the weekend water main burst happened even 100 yards to the west, the A18 would have been unaffected.