Monday, August 10, 2009

Another point on Gilgal roadworks

One of the reasons stated for closing down Gilgal entirely is the conjunction of its width and the need for safety for the workers. Now I've little problem with that, except the roadworks that were going on over at Sandy Lane Industrial Estate last week reminded me of prior works, prior water works, that meant digging up the left hand lane (heading out) of Sandy Lane.

Now the road there is easily comparable to Gilgal in terms of width and is similar in terms of form if not gradient. Also as an industrial estate it has a relatively high volume of traffic of which a fair proportion are heavy vehicles. Yet throughout all the work they managed to keep a lane open and ran it with traffic lights.

So what's the difference? Easy - Sandy Lane is the only vehicular way onto or off the estate, to have shut it down completely would have shut down every single business on it. Gilgal, on the other hand, can be re-routed. A thirteen mile detour to be sure, but nonetheless an alternative route is possible.

So once again this isn't about safety, this is about time and hassle for them. They don't want the fuss and we don't count or even have a say in the matter.

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