We seem to have temporary traffic lights and roadworks all over Burntwood at the moment. Yesterday afternoon and this morning, the temporary lights on Chase Road have been guiding motorists through a very hazardous obstacle, 100m of straight, open road! What’s the point of clearing away all of the barriers and cones and leaving the lights operating at each end? Only in Britain will people queue at a completely meaningless red light when the only obstacle is the light itself!
Credit where it’s due. Gas Alliance turned up at my home today and made good the repair to the block paving on my drive. It looks like a proper job this time so fingers crossed and thanks to the lads that turned up and did the job without any fuss whatsoever.
Before Christmas, Gas Alliance worked their way down Queen Street and Chase Road and left a huge hole on Chase Road open and fenced off for about four weeks. During that time, several workmen drove up, had a look in the hole, without getting into it, for 5 minutes or so then drove off. Eventually, they came back and without doing any further work, filled it in, re-surfaced the path and re-seeded the grass verge.
On Friday afternoon, they came along and dug it all back up again, fenced it off and cleared off. They do know what they’re doing don’t they? Maybe they’ll come back now and re-do the awful repair job they did on my block paving after digging it up and just dropping the blocks back in without even compacting it first! They’ve ignored two emails and a letter so maybe they won’t!
Anyone else had/having issues with Gas Alliance?
As you will have seen and possible experienced, Gas Alliance are in the area replacing the gas mains and the feeds to our homes. We had the misfortune on Tuesday to have our house win the award of ‘toughest job we’ve ever done’ which meant that instead of an hours work, the gas wasn’t reconnected until 6:30pm. It was disconnected again at 08:45 am yesterday for Mains work opposite and we were told at 6:15pm last night that a leak had been detected in our feed and we would not be getting connected! So we spent the day and night with no heat and -2 degrees outside! The leak may have been there for years but now they know about it they are not allowed to connect us back up until it is found and rectified. Now we need two more holes dug in the driveway to install a new feed.
To be fair the guys working for Gas Alliance have been great. They’ve done everything they can. They’ve worked late and been polite, friendly and understanding. There’s no point giving them a hard time because they’re doing their best.
Anyone traveling along the A38 between Weeford and Basset’s Pole over the last four months will have probably complained about the absurd “improvements” underway. It’s due to last for two more months and, at a cost of £2m will include resurfacing, improved visibility and a lowering of the speed limit.
Cutting a road down to one lane each way at 30mph for six months is ludicrous. The eventual speed limit will be reduced from 70 to 60, because as is usual when people kill themselves doing 90+, the answer is to reduce the speed limit which the drivers were ignoring when they died. The same happened on the Lichfield Road into Burntwood after a couple of major accidents involving people travelling over 90mph, they reduced the limit from 60 to 50!
Be honest, have you noticed ANY differences so far? All I’ve witnessed is miles of cones in both directions, a 30mph speed limit with average speed cameras, a couple of sections of new barrier and the grass appears to have been cut. That’s it? for four months work with two more to come? I don’t travel along there at peak times but has anyone actually seen any work being done? Is it a hive of activity during the working day?
I fail to see the logic behind decisions like the A38 “improvements”. It’s a massive waste of public money, causes huge disruption and arguments will run on for years over accident statistics to try to prove to us all that it was justified.
Update: Apparently, the average speed cameras will be a permanent fixture to enforce the new 60mph limit. Are they trying to push traffic onto the parallel M6 Toll?
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