Manchester Arndale centre traffic changes to be made this weekend plus Christmas parade road closures

Manchester city council has confirmed some changes this weekend to help deal with congested roads in the city centre.

The last few weekends have seen large numbers of shoppers in town and some folk have complained it took them up to four hours to clear tailbacks at the Arndale centre.

A council statement said: “Last weekend saw more vehicles in the City Centre, and whilst Deansgate traffic flows improved, there were still significant issues around Shudehill, so we are applying further additional, temporary measures this weekend to try to reduce the volume of through traffic using Corporation Street and Shudehill.”

Here are the new measures in full:

Weekend of 10 and 11 December

The council said as a result of queues caused by vehicles leaving busy city centre car parks, the following changes will be made this weekend to help improve traffic flow:

Corporation Street will be closed to southbound traffic at its junction with Hanover Street – Traffic will be diverted via Hanover Street; Left onto Riga Street; Left onto Miller Street; Right at Corporation Street; Right at Rochdale Road; ahead at Swan Street; diversion ends at Hanover Street.

All right turns out of the Arndale Car Park onto Shudehill will be prohibited. All vehicle traffic will be required to turn left out of the car park onto Shudehill north-east towards the Ring Road. These changes will be in place from 9am on Saturday morning.

This weekend there will be a number of road closures for the Christmas Parade taking place in the City Centre, as well as changes to the Metrolink timetable and on-street parking.

Christmas parade road closures

These roads will be closed for part of the day as listed:

• 10am to 4pm: Victoria Street
• 11am to 2.30pm: St Mary Gate (Cross Street to Deansgate)
• Deansgate (Victoria Street to John Dalton)
• St Ann’s Street (St Mary’s Street to Cross Street)
• Cross Street (Albert Square to Market Street)

Access to Marks and Spencers car park will be managed as much as possible via Victoria Bridge Street, but there will be two periods of approximately 20 minutes when the council says it will have to pause this.

Changes to Metrolink and on-street parking

As well as a Metrolink tram suspension of the Second City Crossing route between 12.30pm and 2pm on Sunday, there will be on-street parking suspension from 9pm on Saturday 10 December until 2pm on Sunday 11 December on the following streets:

• Market Street and St Mary Gate (Cross Street to Deansgate)
• Deansgate (Victoria Street to John Dalton)
• St Ann’s Street (St Mary’s Street to Cross Street)
• Cross Street (Albert Square to Market Street)
• Cateaton Street
• St Mary’s Street
• Victoria Street