FEARS that one of Darlington's busiest roads will struggle to cope with an extra 2,200 vehicles a day when a massive distribution depot opens have been raised.

Coun Barrie Armstrong is concerned that West Auckland Road and the new Rotary Way will be unable to cope with the traffic when the Argos centre opens in Faverdale.

At the full Darlington Borough Council meeting on Thursday of last week, Coun Armstrong asked what the highways and transport department intended to do about the situation.

"When Argos is fully up and running, they expect 2,200 additional traffic movements per day," he said. "That is one every 39 seconds, day and night. They are not able to provide a solution to this at the moment.

"The existing traffic on Rotary Lane will all filter out on to West Auckland Road. An already difficult situation will become much, much worse."

The figures were taken from a survey carried out by the company.

Coun Nick Wallis, cabinet member for highways and transport, said the situation was being monitored.

"We will continue to review it. We have got an on-going study to see if there is an engineering solution available."

He said that the distribution centre was in many ways a positive thing and would bring jobs and money to the town.

"We are a victim of our own success," he said.

The 740,000sq ft centre is presently taking shape at the Faverdale East business park.

The company is expecting to create 700 jobs on the site, which covers about half of the 86-acre park development and is due to open in late July or early August.