A CONTROVERSIAL road closure scheme could be reduced from 18 months to three if councillors give it the go ahead next week.

The closure of Hollow Hill Lane/Market Lane as an experimental traffic order has caused misery for motorists travelling in and around Langley and Iver, and the Slough Borough Council neighbourhoods and community services scrutiny panel has recommended to cabinet that the scheme be terminated after three months.

The order was put in place from August 2 to see the effect that the future permanent closure of the road would have on the surrounding areas if schemes such as the Heathrow Express depot and the Western Rail Link to Heathrow gain permission.

A report due to be heard at the cabinet meeting on Monday states: "The panel were concerned over the 18 month time frame mentioned in the experimental scheme. To allay some of these concerns, they were informed that the first six months of this referred to the imposition of the scheme itself, and the subsequent 12 months to the period in which the impact of the scheme could be assessed and proposals made.

"Whilst this was appreciated by members of the panel, their concerns remained that the level of inconvenience caused to local residents and businesses was too great to justify any extension of the scheme beyond that which was absolutely necessary.

"Given this, the panel requested that the bridge closure itself should be terminated at the end of three months.

"Whilst the Panel accepted that public consultation may continue beyond this date, they considered that the raw data on traffic flows, and the public experiences which would feed into such consultation, would be sufficiently clear after three months for further implementation of the closure to be unnecessary."

Cabinet will now decide whether to cancel the scheme after three months, on November 2, provided that sufficient traffic information has been collected by this date.