‘We’ve been busy’ say highways department as Stratford drivers complain over lack of progress on Warwick Road development
LIKE a particularly bad game of Where’s Wally?, the lack of workers spotted in action on Warwick Road, Stratford, has intensified frustration this week.
Contractors for Warwickshire County Council, who are in charge of highways in the district, started on the 19th February to improve safety and develop pedestrian and cycle paths. The scheme is expected to last five months.
So far the works have caused chaos – with lorries being diverted down narrow residential roads, gridlocked traffic, and hours added to travel times around the district, as previously reported in the Herald.
This week the hot topic among those whose lives continue to be negatively impacted by the work was the absence of workers.
Stratford resident Chris Wall told the Herald: “There is a complete absence of demonstrable progress on the A439. This project is now almost in week four. I walked the route last Thursday (7th March) and saw little evidence of work being done other than the deployment of approximately 500 cones.
“There was some activity on the Ingon Lane junction, including tree-felling (although largely done before the road closure) but really it looks like minimal effort from the contractors. We’re nearly a month in what is going on?
“This road-building programme should be a 12 hour per-day (increasing with daylight hours), seven-day per-week, large-scale delivery project. There is scarcely anyone there, meanwhile hundreds of people pollute the town centre, routinely running red lights, blocking box-junctions and detrimentally impacting air quality for residents. Businesses, public services and schools are all detrimentally impacted.
“It’s shameful. Stratford’s reputation, already reeling from Christmas market chaos, the loss of anchor stores and the enduring railway services/station debacle, is being further hamstrung.”
On a final thought, Mr Wall said: “To add insult to injury the road closure signage on the Warwick Road exhorts ‘Cyclists Dismount’ Why? The empty carriageway from town is probably the safest 5km in Britain.”
Meanwhile the farmers at Avon Meadow Farm are, as they predicted (Herald, 15th February), having a nightmare trying to manage their livestock.
Steve and Nick Freemans’ land spans both sides of the Warwick Road near to Ingon Lane, and just last Saturday they said they had no choice, after the access to the junction was unexpectedly blocked, but to herd ewes in lamb down the southbound lane of the road, causing a huge tailback of traffic.
Lisa Sargeant, Steve’s partner, told the Herald: “We’ve also had to move our cattle to Quinton because it was taking us three hours going round the long route to get to pasture up the road.”
Last Thursday (7th March) Lisa shared video of no workers in sight on the whole of the road at three in the afternoon. This, claimed Lisa, was especially galling to see given the extra work and worry they are being put through.
“So little work has been done it’s absolutely ridiculous,” she said. “Yesterday there was one guy just stood in the road and one other sat in his truck. No wonder there’s been not much progress in four weeks.
“We could do a better job with a wheelbarrow and a spade.”
In response to the complaints about the seeming lack of work happening on the Warwick Road, the county council said that everything was still on schedule for completion by the end of June.
A spokesperson added: “The ongoing works along the A439 aim to significantly reduce the number of collisions and create a safer, more accessible environment for all road users and pedestrians. The works on the A439 Warwick Road are well under way and continue to be on programme. Our highways team is working on ground and vegetation clearance at present, along with drainage works and the installation of retaining wall features at Ingon Lane.”
They added: “Our teams carried out preparatory and survey works on Warwick Road, which were needed before the main construction began. This preparatory work is built into our programme for the works. On the days in question we were also dealing with flooding of adjacent land off the main road.”
