Inevitably I have been inundated with emails about the latest traffic chaos in Shoreham caused by roadworks at the Norfolk Bridge. I was at the Conservative Party Conference in Manchester when they started but our excellent Shoreham County Councillor Kevin Boram leapt into action and raised the problem with highways officers at County Hall and spoke to the workmen at the site.
Subsequently we have both been speaking to the Cabinet Member for Highways, officers and others and I have visited the site. The work is being undertaken by UK Power Distributions in order to strengthen the power grid in that part of Shoreham and Lancing without which the system could be compromised. It appears to be linked with the increased power requirements for the area linked with the New Monks farm development and may not be the last of it. However, it is clear that the works have not been undertaken in compliance with the licence they have been granted by the County Council, and local people, let alone councillors and the MP were not given any notification to help prepare for the disruption.
I am particularly annoyed by this given the publicity around my campaign to ‘name and shame’ local roadworks involving apparently unnecessary traffic lights and lane closures, which I launched earlier in the summer. Shoreham High Street and the A259 between Shoreham and Lancing have been particularly plagued with disruptive roadworks over the last year and any disruption here has a major knock-on effect to the north, east and west. I have already taken up cudgels with Southern Water especially.
Apparently, the works were first discussed with the Highways Department before the summer and West Sussex advised UKPD to leave it later in the year when traffic levels are lower. Given the essential nature of the work the County Council has little power to refuse permission but they can certainly specify conditions and timing to mitigate the disruption. Subsequently, as part of the licence UKPD were required to place advanced warning boards around the site 10 days in advance of work starting and letter drop affected residents and stakeholders. I cannot see that this has happened, and I certainly was not made aware of the impending work. Can any constituent please tell me if they noticed signs in advance or received a letter?
Another condition is that the traffic lights used should be manually controlled so that real humans can monitor queue length and respond accordingly. This was apparently not being done and that has been rectified. Given the magnitude of the excavations going on at the Norfolk Road roundabout it was unavoidable that a lane should be closed, and lights used. Apparently UKPD originally requested use of lights for 4 weeks, but West Sussex refused given the likely disruption to the location! However, the traffic lights are due to be removed on October 7th and that is the major cause of the disruption. The remaining works are due to be fully complete by October 24th hopefully with far less disruption to traffic. I will be in Shoreham on Saturday to see if this has happened.
The upside is that this stretch of road is subject to the new ‘lane rental’ charging system so there is a financial incentive to get the work done as quickly as possible. The downside is that the level of penalty that the County Council can levy against a contractor which breaks the terms of their licence is a derisory £80. This is a national consideration and obviously needs changing. The Department for Transport is currently consulting on changing the system to bring in meaningful penalties and I will certainly be lobbying for that to happen as soon as possible.
As a result of the complaints and our discussions with the County Council Highways officials are visiting the site daily to make sure that UKPD are complying with the terms of the licence and doing
everything they can to minimise traffic disruption, although inevitably this is still going to be a problem until the works are completed.
Hopefully the removal of the lights on Saturday will alleviate some of the chaos and Councillor Boram and I will continue to monitor the situation and make sure that the Highways Department are intervening if anything if else goes badly wrong.
I hope this is helpful.
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