KENDAL is bracing itself for motoring confusion as the wraps finally come off the town's controversial new traffic system at the weekend.

Extra police will be drafted in and a plethora of signs and cones will be deployed to help drivers navigate their way around the unfamiliar town centre road layout with its bewildering array of additional traffic lights and crossings.

Although the big switch over takes place at 9am on Sunday it is anticipated that the crunch time will be rush hour on Monday when travel-to-work drivers and parents trying to complete the school run come together.

Many Kendalians are expected to make practice runs on Sunday to get used to the new traffic flows which will see vehicles travelling two-way along Sandes Avenue, Blackhall Road and New Road and cars going down Lowther Street instead of up.

Nick Raymond, Cumbria County Council's engineer for the South Lakes said the transition ought to be a simple process of removing cones from roads where one carriageway has been closed during recent preparatory works.

Starting at around 9am, cones will be removed from Sandes Avenue, Blackhall Road and New Road respectively.

Lowther Street will be closed at 8pm on Saturday night to allow road markings to be painted.

If all goes according to plan, Lowther Street will be the last to open at around midday with traffic flowing downhill towards the River Kent.

Once open, sets of traffic lights in the system will automatically gather information on the numbers of vehicles and set the time periods between changes accordingly.

Mr Raymond said the system needed to accumulate data in order to work effectively and because of that it is expected to take some time to "settle down".

Rob Lawley, senior consultant with Capita dbs which is contracted by Cumbria County Council to maintain highways in South Lakeland, said: "We have tried to anticipate problem areas for the next couple of weeks.

But it is still going to be confusing for people to use for the first few weeks at least."

Westmorland and Lonsdale MP Tim Collins has urged local decision-makers to make sure the changes to Kendal's traffic system are treated only as an experiment and reversed if they do not work.

"If the plans damage the town's shops and businesses, as many have predicted, traffic managers must be willing to admit they got things wrong and go back to the drawing board."

The manager of Woolworths, Scott Hamilton, believes business at the store on Highgate will suffer because fewer Stagecoach buses will start and stop in the lay-by outside.

"I am thinking it is going to have a massive impact on our business," said Mr Hamilton.

"We used to get a lot of trade from bus users and that is being whipped away from us."

George Inchmore, local representative of the Federation of Small Businesses, said: "We are not too sure how it's going to work out.

It could go either way." He said it would probably take at least six months before anyone knew whether it had been successful, but he echoed Mr Collins's sentiments that, if the system produced no improvements, planners should scrap it.

Meanwhile, Mark Tenant, director of Disability Action South Lakeland said the changes to bus services would also create difficulties for people with mobility problems.

With fewer buses stopping outside Woolworths and the Town Hall and outside Stricklandgate House close to the library and post office, passengers would face an uphill walk from the bus station into the town centre.

"It is a particular difficulty for people with mobility problems," he said.

More than 18,000 vehicles a day pass through Stricklandgate and at peak periods there are long tailbacks of vehicles along Highgate stretching as far back as Kirkland.

The scheme has been designed to cut traffic flows through the town by half.

As Kendal counted down to traffic D-Day people on the streets seemed resigned to "a fair amount of confusion and chaos".

Minicab driver Angela Teasdale, who works for Castle Taxis, said: "A lot of people are going to be confused at first.

Until it gets going we won't know whether it is going to be better or not."

But community midwife Julie Gibson said: "I think it is going to be better, anything has got to be better than it is at the moment."

Police say there will be extra officers on the streets and an officer patrolling the town on a morotbike to "help with the smooth transition".