George Lane will be closed for both days this weekend – between 09:00 and 17:30 on Saturday and Sunday.
A Broadband supplier, Gigaclear Ltd, have announced that they will be digging up a part of George Lane to put in broadband cable, or in the words of Wiltshire Council – ‘to carry out excavation works to lay Gigaclear infrastructure and associated works’.
Gigaclear Ltd, one of the broadband suppliers looking to come into Marlborough have the right to install fibre or cable wherever and whenever on public roads and neither the Town Council, nor – we understand – Wiltshire Council have much (if any) influence over where, when, or for how long the disruption will take place.
Nor, there would appear, is there a specific period of notice for such works. Whereas the High Street closure for the Mop Fairs, and any other event is announced long in advance, this type of work can be planned at short notice with no consideration as to disruption or the effect on the community that suffers.
Marlborough has had too many such experiences recently: Salisbury Road; Bath Road; London Road, all being disrupted by road works at no or minimal notice, and in several cases traffic lights being installed and operational well before any works commence, so road users have had to queue for traffic lights to change, for absolutely no reason.
Whilst this is at a level way beyond the Town Council area of authority, they are ‘told’ at short notice and then incur the displeasure of those affected, Wiltshire Council should be able to wield some influence, but that rarely seems to happen. Even when there are multiple works going on – rarely is there any co-ordination between the different ‘silos’ of Wiltshire Council, each coordinating a particular area of work. So any correspondence for this (latest) piece of disruption should be addressed to Wiltshire Council Highways department at streetworks@wiltshire.gov.uk, or contacted on 030 0456 0105.
There will be a full Wiltshire Council session in October on Tuesday 18 at 10:30, so if anyone wants to explain to the full Council what the recent traffic problems in Marlborough are, or ask specific questions, then contact the Democracy Manager, Keiran Elliott at kieran.elliott@wiltshire.gov.uk as any question will need to be tabled in advance, and Kieran will be able to say by when. Strangely, there is nothing obvious on the Wiltshire Council website about Council meetings – why? Details are there, about six ‘clicks’ down, and how to ask a question can be found on the ‘Public Participation‘ page.
So another weekend of possible traffic chaos looms, let’s hope that the broadband service eventually offered by Gigaclear is in real contrast to the disruption being caused to enable that service.
The Parade Cinema – it’s been a year already
