Is the regular traffic chaos in Marlborough news? It should be, anywhere else it would be, definitely, but here? Today is a nightmare, enough for resident Antonia Wigan to write to Wiltshire Council leader Richard Clewer and local East Wilts MP, Danny Kruger. Those for whom Marlborough is central to everyday life have had to put up with the regular disruptions, all of which impacts on our lives, be it going to work, sport, social activity, or just getting to Tesco or Waitrose. Today is just a day when that red line of frustration is crossed. Antonia Wigan’s letter is below, followed by Cllr Clewer’s response:
Dear Councillor Clewer,
I am writing to you as a Marlborough resident who like many others living in and around Marlborough are at their wits end suffering the appalling planning of roadworks that Marlborough has to endure. Today, Sunday, is another case in point.
One Network advises Thames Water is digging up the road from today until Wednesday on London Road. As of this morning, Sunday, the time of writing there are 4 way traffic lights set up with no work being done and only 1 workman literally wondering around not doing anything. That is not an exaggeration. No equipment, no holes in the road, literally nothing but in the meantime traffic chaos in all directions causing delays of up to 60 mins and more. Only a week ago Wales & West Utilities were digging up London Road. Why on earth are these applications not coordinated?
To make matters worse, someone at Wiltshire Council has approved roadworks to commence on Herd St in Marlborough for tomorrow until Wednesday which means for 4 days Marlborough is going to be gridlocked causing untold delays to those that live and work in Marlborough and the surrounding areas, hitting the local economy as people will stay away, reducing productivity for the national economy as time is wasted with these delays. The planning seems to have been done with no thought to residents and with zero common sense.
If you lived in Marlborough you would know how much stress these roadworks cause on top of the dire state of the roads and the problem we have anyway with Marlborough used as a rat run by HGVs. When oh when is Wiltshire Council going to do something about this chaos which has been going on for years but nothing changes.
Please can you use your role with responsibility and serve your county residents and actually do something that will help to improve the daily quality of our lives.
I look forward to forward to hearing the real and tangible actions you will be taking to address this problem.
Kind regards,
Antonia Wigan
Cllr Clewer’s response below:
Dear Mrs Wigan,
Thanks for your e-mail.
I heard about the problems in Marlborough shortly before your e-mail came through and ensured they were reported to Wiltshire Highways to look into asap through the duty engineer.
We are required to allow utility companies to carry out roadworks, we cannot refuse them permission to do works but only provide conditions and try to minimise disruption. They need to tell us before they do so and we would normally put conditions on those works in sensitive locations like Marlborough to ensure that lights are manned and working properly etc.
I have asked for a more detailed officer response as to what it going on and to try to limit the congestion caused by have more than one set of roadworks going on at the same time. We should be limiting works so that only one is impacting an area at any one time (although National Highways make that challenging at times with the permissions they give on the roads they manage).
We have had a number of highways issues in Marlborough over the last few years where we have ended up fining utility companies for not properly manning and maintaining traffic lights but the fines we are legally allowed to levy are very small compared to the disruption badly operated works cause.
I will come back to you with further detail once I get a response from officers tomorrow.
Yours sincerely,
Richard Clewer
To his credit Cllr Clewer did respond, and on a Sunday as well. But will this help? We can only hope so, and apply whatever pressure we can to make some action be taken which will co-ordinate and schedule such works so that they don’t all come together, or overlap in ways that exacerbates the problems. One consideration would be for Wiltshire to ‘get a grip’ with the ‘one.network’ information website, which – whilst not under their direct control – frequently quotes incorrect or out of date information. This isn’t new, some roadworks are shown as ‘complete closure’, only to be partial overnight restrictions. That’s just one example, but the Council should manage the accuracy of the flow of information displayed. We are always referred to this site when asking any questions, so it is beholden on the Council to check what is showing.
So whilst the chaos and roadworks isn’t the direct responsibility of Wiltshire Council, it is primarily the Utilities – gas, water, electricity and now fibre broadband who have rights to dig up whenever and wherever, it is the responsibility of the Council to co-ordinate, plan and minimise the disruption that we – as their customers endure on such a regular basis. They should be looking after us.
Whilst we credit Cllr Clewer for his prompt response, we would just ask, again that efforts are made to influence what happens, when and how so that the lives of the residents of Marlborough are disrupted as little as possible. And to keep us informed, accurately.
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