Good news: The new proposed pedestrian crossing for the eastern end of George Lane, adjacent to where the former Police Station used to be will be ready for the start of term next school year in September.
Not-so-good news: Work on the crossing will have to start on Monday next week, whilst schools don’t finish for Summer until Friday 23 July.
Ideally the work schedule would have been dovetailed with the school holidays – but because of major works elsewhere (nearby in London Road) starting in early August this crossing work had to be completed before this other work started.
Marlborough.news contacted Wiltshire Councillor Jane Davies, who was instrumental in getting this crossing agreed about the issue of timing. She said: “Where possible Wiltshire Council programme works around schools so that they fall entirely within the holiday period and the original plan was to start works the following Monday (26 July). However, there are programmed works on London Road starting 2 August and continuing until the end of the summer holiday, so the crossing has to be completed before these works start. We are not permitted to have both underway at the same time due to the disruption this would have on the local network. The choice was to start earlier or postpone until next summer.”
So in summary it was a decision between delaying for some while (maybe a year?) or proceeding, albeit with a degree of disruption for the first week so that the crossing would be ready and operational in time for the start of the next school year.
The need for the crossing was recognised as priority, no objections were received during the consultation process and generally it is regarded as a long overdue addition to the objective of making the roads around Marlborough St Mary’s (and St John’s) safer. Hence the decision to proceed sooner rather than later, albeit with some unwelcome disruption.