It happens every year. Councils have bits of budgets left they need to use up, so they start going round looking for work to do. In this case they’re looking for road works to do. The last couple of winters have left our roads round here full of more holes than Swiss Cheese. I’ve come to grief on some of these pot holes – I’ve had three wheel rims replaced, and got an advisory on my MOT recently that two of my wheels are still a bit bent.
Recently a whole fleet of little roadworks signs have descended on us round here, each giving the date of impending roadworks and ‘possible delays’. I looked at them at first and sighed, resigned to the fact I’d end up sitting in traffic for the forseable future. I saw plenty of people ranting about it on Facebook and Twitter alike.
But something dawned on me. This year the council has done it differently. As a rule, they’d be doing all this work around September time. Just as all the schools go back. However, they seem a little bit ahead of themselves this year and are doing it all as the schools finish. So basically when the traffic is lighter – i.e. they’re doing exactly what people have been saying they should have been doing for years.
So far the disruption to me has been quite minimal. My drive home was slowed down a little because they’d taken off the top surface so I had to slow down to get over that. I think one of the back roads it due to be completely closed for a day or two next week – but that doesn’t matter because I have the choice of two alternate routes anyway; had the schools still been open it’d only be one route.
The amount of signage has been quite something too – in so much, I’ve seen approximately eight signs on one junction warning of the impending works. That’s something that they never really used to bother with. You’d maybe get a little sign strapped to a lamp post, but nothing major. This time they’ve gone all out with proper road-side signs, which are clear, and legible when whizzing by.
So I’d just like to say well done, Council. You got it right for once!