According to our local authority Highways Manager it is "..always necessary to close roads when undertaking works of this kind.We have a duty to provide the workforce with a safe working environment and road closure is the only mechanism to achieve this."
Don't suppose the fact that for this particular contract the tendered price was 32% lower if the job was undertaken over four days with road closure rather then seven days with single lane working was anything to do with the decision was it!
Don't suppose the environmental impact assessment for the job had to take into account the closure would inflict those undertaking the diversion with a 28mile additional journey either. The fact that by his own estimates 43 HGV movements would have to undertake this each day of the works to serve a single business also seems to be unimportant.
Interesting then that when a certain council employee complained that should the road he lives on be closed for resurfacing the "numerous residents struggling to attend their workplaces, take their children to school and go about their normal activities" would be inflicted with a "wholly unjustified seven mile additional journey" to reach the local town it was enough to justify single lane working for that five day job.
Wasn't a surprise to me to read it was the very same person a year earlier!!
Yet again one rule for one and another one for the rest of us
