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Highways chiefs said more than a third fewer lorries are travelling through Carlisle city centre after the opening of a relief road.

The £176m Carlisle Northern Development Route (CNDR) was opened in February.

Cumbria County Council set up a network of counters to show road usage before and after the road opened.

It said initial findings were a cut in vehicles on city centre roads with more than 10,000 vehicles a day on average using the new road.

It said the A595 at Castle Way had seen a 16% reduction in all vehicles from 38,083 a day before the opening of the road to 32,050 afterwards, with a 41% reduction in HGVs from 6,860 to 4,060.

On the A7 at Stanwix Bank there was a 16% drop in all vehicles and a 32% reduction in HGVs.

The council said there were higher traffic levels on some routes with direct links to the CNDR and it had set aside funding to cut the effects of that and also improve links for pedestrians and cyclists.

It said the initial signs were encouraging although it was aware factors such as the weather might skew the figures and so they needed to be treated with some caution.

A more detailed study will be carried out later this year.