ESTATE residents involved in a traffic calming experiment are backing a call for a public meeting to discuss a final solution.

Families in the Bradwell Road area have signed a petition launched by councillors Peter Franzen and Peter Solinas who claim the trial imposed last June was a shambles.

They want Wigan Council to set-up a public meeting to which all estate residents, including those from Norwood Avenue, will be invited.

Days after the orders were imposed in a bid to halt motorists using the estate as a rat run the councillors demanded that the prohibition order on Craven Avenue should be scrapped.

They requested full consultation and a public meeting, and that the question of apt "access only" signs and traffic calming measures should be included on the agenda, but this was rejected by the engineering department.

Subsequently the council decided to ignore original proposals and introduced a new one, the "Craven Avenue, Lowton - experimental order (bus gate)".

Cllr Franzen said the failed experiment has been turned from a crisis into a disaster.

He said the advance warning signs at the Bradwell Road and Norwood Avenue entrances to the estate, advising drivers of the "bus gate" within the estate, have been taken down.

Any driver entering the estate from one entrance for access purposes and then deciding to leave by the other is suddenly and without any prior warning confronted at Craven Avenue with a sign prohibiting departure.

He asked: "What is the driver supposed to do? The road isn't even wide enough to safely turn around.

"Our petition has been delivered to every house on the estate and we hope all residents will back the call for a public meeting to try to solve this fiasco once and for all. There has been an overwhelming response so far."