Why can’t residents be better informed of local roadworks? (From The Argus)

Why can’t residents be better informed of local roadworks?

8:30am Tuesday 21st February 2012 in Your Argus

Why is it that there seems to be nobody at Brighton and Hove City Council or anywhere else who has any control over which of the roads in Brighton can be dug up, or for how long?

For most of December, due to gas main works taking place at the junction of Ditchling Road and Viaduct Road, no northbound traffic could use Ditchling Road below Fiveways and northbound buses had to be diverted via alternative routes. This meant that no northbound Ditchling Road stops between Viaduct Road junction and Fiveways could be served. This finished shortly before Christmas.

Then, from about the second week in January it was announced that because of emergency work on electrical cabling, Ditchling Road southbound would be closed between Warleigh Road junction and Viaduct Road junction. Originally the information said this would finish on January 27, but that date came and went and the hole in the road and the barriers surrounding it were still there.

About a week ago it was announced by a notice that this work was now scheduled to continue until March 13. But on February 16 I received an email from Brighton and Hove Bus Company stating that this emergency now necessitates Ditchling Road being completely closed from February 17 until “approximately” March 23. No prizes for guessing that as a result there can be no buses or any other traffic in either direction in Ditchling Road between Fiveways and the Open Market for at least five weeks.

I accept that there must be times when the utilities buried under the roads have to be repaired or replaced, but the way in which this is done (or for much of the time not done) needs radical improvement.

We are told that this is an emergency but it is a curious “emergency” that necessitates only a handful of workmen working for no more than (it seems) three or four hours a day on three days a week at most, and no work at all at weekends.

I think explanations are due as to why it is that even in an “emergency situation”, several days at a time can pass with no actual work being done.

John Hyde-Smith, Belton Road, Brighton