A5272

Route

The A5272 is one of the main north-south roads in Stoke-on-Trent, running to the east of the Six Towns and roughly parallel to the A50. Until recently, it was made up of two B-roads: the southern section was the B5040 and the northern section the B5049. The road was presumably upgraded owing to the volume of traffic using it - but many road signs and indeed some maps have not yet caught up with the change!

Weston Coyney - Great Chell

The A5272 starts on a set of traffic lights on the A520 in Weston Coyney, very close to the edge of the city. It heads roughly westwards to begin with and soon seems to enter open country - a reminder that Stoke-on-Trent is not a typical urban area! To the right is Park Hall Country Park (much of which is a reclaimed quarry) and to the left is the remnants of the grounds of the long-gone Park Hall. Indeed, even though the hall is now the site of a housing estate, this is not immediately obvious from this road (although at this point the A5272 has been realigned slightly to aid traffic). Hulme Road turns off to the right soon afterwards; the junction is marked with an old finger post sign looking as if it predates this alignment of the road.

The A5272 edges gradually back into civilisation. It passes a "business village" to the left and a golf course (at this point indistinguishable from the country park) to the right before reaching a roundabout adjacent to a gasometer. Here we meet the B5039 from Longton. On the other side of the roundabout we pass the First Bus depot and then leave the golf course behind us, so for the first time since the road began it is once again in a residential area. Although the houses are new, the Waggon and Horses pub, adjacent to the next roundabout, is old enough to be marked on maps when this area was just scattered houses.

Now in Bentilee, the A5272 passes a supermarket and then runs straight for over a mile to the next roundabout. At this point the road is wide, with separate service roads on both sides, suggesting (although I have no proof of this) that the road was planned as a dual carriageway. Following the roundabout, the road zigzags before coming to a halt at a set of traffic lights on the A52, the point at which the old B5040 ended.

The section of the A5272 where it the submissive in a multiplex is quite interesting. The A52 continues one block westwards to another set of traffic lights, where it TOTSOs and the A5008 (and our route) continues on up Limekiln Bank. Given that the A5272 reappears later, this section of the A5008 is a useless multiplex, although this did not cause comment when the next section of road was the B5049.

The A5272 turns off the A5008 at the end of the dual-carriageway section. It passes Northwood Stadium to its right and heads towards the Central Forest Park (a reclaimed industrial site). When it reaches the B5047 (from Hanley) on the edge of the park, that road has priority through the triangular junction. The A5272 uses the other two sides of the triangle in a one-way system. Eastbound traffic simply TOTSOs whereas westbound traffic joins the B5047 at a set of traffic lights. The right-turn lane seems unusually short (with much of the road approaching the lights two-way for residential access) given that the majority of traffic will turn in that direction to remain on the A5272.

Sneyd Green

We leave the Forest Park behind us and soon reach the Holden Bridge, a very early GSJ with the A53. The present bridge was built in 1930 replacing another bridge built nearly 90 years before. The A5272 then passes Burslem Cemetery to the left before reaching Smallthorne and crossing three roundabouts in very quick succession. This is one of those junctions where road improvements seem to make no difference to the traffic flow (road markings were changed three times in the first half of 2014, for example). The B5051 crosses us at this junction. We then continue along the aptly named High Lane which passes along the top of a ridge.

High Lane continues for the best part of two miles. It is largely residential, although we do pass a school and a hospital on the left of the road before reaching a green area adjacent to playing fields. This is Little Chell. We soon enter Great Chell where the A5272 ends on a roundabout with the A527.