Roadworks - Completed .....but too late

Congratulations to LCC Highways. Today saw the work on the five-month-old damaged road gully , to the water valve cover, in the centre of the junction completed - but five and 18 months too late!!!

The damaged drain outside Chatz, the hairdressers, was also being investigated and hopefully repaired.

The traffic management system was installed at 0800hrs, at the start of the rush hour and school run. This caused traffic chaos, which asks the question why was this work not done at night LCC?. Both sets of work were completed in less than eight hours, which means if it started at 2200hrs it would finish at 0600 hrs. I don’t accept the very weak argument given by Cllr Aron that “this was not practical”. This is not an acceptable argument as there are MANY examples when night working has been carried out, where traffic disruption is an issue.

As regards the comments also made by Cllr Aron that “either you are satisfied that the jobs are being done or you are dissatisfied the works are not being done”. Sorry Councillor, again you don’t understand the issues. This is about the time frame that it has taken - five months to repair the road gully and nearly 18 months to deal with the drain outside the hairdressers in the Bullring. And only putting a camera survey in the drain in January 2018. - why wasn’t this survey done when the problem was first seen by LCC? This delay has resulted in water damage to the business’s shop front. Timely repair would have saved the business being compromised and caused minimal traffic disruption.

I challenge LCC senior officers, County Councillors to meet with me and other residents to understand why the issues cannot be dealt with, in a timely and practical way, to ensure the town is not compromised.

I would also ask the Senior Officers of Highways and Councillors Davies and Aron to walk the town so they can see first hand the other major problems that continue to exist.

Richard Barker RIBA