Thursday, August 26, 2010

Lane closure on Areley Common

It appears Severn Trent Water are doing some emergency work on the grass between Areley Common and the Dunley Road opposite Hermitage Way. So far so what.

However in order to do this they've decided to park their vehicles in the road and cone them off.


The white part indicates where they're working. The red part where they've closed off the lane and the green part is the old bus-stop that was purposefully left as a parking point for service vehicles. So coming out of Hermitage Way you can see the in-flow of traffic from Dunley Road, but coming down Areley Common the parked vehicles obscure the view.

Now this might just be temporary while they offload tools, but a hole was dug, a digger placed and their trucks still parked. So a quick call to Highways and Transport on 0845 607 2005 and it'll get passed on for examination.

I'm sure it's emergency work and this may seem petty of me, but the point is they have to learn they can't just turn up and do this sort of thing without thinking through what it affects.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

And as a resident of an unadopted road, mitton gardens, i am still fighting STW as they turned up did an awful job and left the road worse than when it started. they have a terrible attitude along with their sub-contractors.

FlipC said...

To be honest I'm not surprised the law in this instance is a right mess. Most of the legislation is contained within the New Road and Street Works Act 1991, but this has been heavily amended (for the better) by the Traffic Management Act 2004.

Neither legislation.gov.uk or statutelaw.gov.uk provide the new amended version of the 1991 Act.

Trying to piece it together I see this: The utility company still has to contact the local authority as they keep the "register of street works" however as an unadopted road they also have to provide advance notice to the "street manager" basically whoever is in charge of repairs so a managing agent or a housing association.

It is up to the street managers to determine the timing NOT the local authority.

So for that point if they just turned up and dug up the street they may have done so illegally.

Reinstatement of the road surface is not differentiated between adopted and unadopted roads, however its a civil matter. Basically the street manager needs to take STW to court to have the roads repaired. The "Undertaker" guarantees the work for 2 or 3 years depending on the exact work carried out.