Firms count cost of ring road crash

Businesses in Wolverhampton were today counting the cost of a crash between a car and cyclist which closed the city's ring road for more than three hours.

The collision saw police cordon off Ring Road St Patrick's, causing traffic chaos for more than four hours.

Tailbacks of around two miles were reported down the Wednesfield Road following the accident at on Friday at 2.45pm, while city centre roads including Berry Street, Broad Street, Cleveland Street, and Tower Street were busy with cars queuing bumper-to-bumper.

See also: Police called to crash scene

Stephanie Jennings, chief media assistant at the Light House media centre in Fryer Street, said today: "I was stuck in it myself, so I know how bad it was. We had the launch of an exhibition on Friday night called Food Chain and the numbers were well down on what we would expect.

"I sent a message to the curator saying we would struggle to get people in, and in the end we were proved right. It was bad timing."

Maxine Sadlier, who runs Sadlier's Coffee Lounge in High Street, Tettenhall, said: "We were very busy on Friday morning but by the time we got to the afternoon, it really did tail off and we were not sure why at the time.

"By 3.30pm we were very quiet, I'd say we were affected quite badly. My mother got stuck for 45 minutes because of it, when you've got an accident by an island that big it was always likely to cause problems.

"We tend to do quite well on Fridays but this time, it was the opposite. It was not good at all."

The cordon came down at 5.50pm on Friday, by which time some furious drivers had been stuck for an hour, while others said they had moved just a few yards since 4pm.

It was not until shortly before 7pm that many of the major routes out of the city centre were back to normal.

The delay was partly down to police investigating the site and partly down to the steering wheel on the MG Rover, the car involved on the collision, becoming locked in the impact.

The male cyclist had a fractured skull and back injuries but West Midlands Police today said he was recovering at New Cross Hospital and is due to go home this week.