MY VIEW: Ill-planned roadworks are crippling my town

IS it me or are roadworks planned to cause maximum disruption? Don’t get me wrong, I am always much happier to see our hard earned money spent on the genuine needs of the community, rather than on some of the weird and wonderful things we have all seen publicised.

But I just do not understand who feels it is a good idea to work on all routes to a town at the same time.

Take Rayleigh, for example. It is undergoing major roadworks to renew 3km of gas pipes.

Last year, the High Street was closed for many weeks. At the same time, the only other route to the station was dug up.

Now, the most major of these works is under way on Hambro Hill, Downhall Road and the Hullbridge junction. This will take 40 weeks. Yes, 40 weeks!

As a Rayleigh resident, that’s not good news to hear of course, but if that’s how long the experts say it will take, that’s good enough for me. As least we know such major works would be planned with keeping the community moving in mind. Right? Wrong!

Just a few days into the said roadworks and chaos reigns supreme. At rush hour Rayleigh is in gridlock and it’s not much better throughout the rest of the day.All routes to Southend are now being worked on, which is a complete nightmare for any Rayleigh resident who works there.

My wife is one of them. She is a working mum, contracted to start at her job at half past nine.

For two years she has dropped our children off at school and made her way to Southend with very few problems. Now, with every route worked on, she is arriving 30 to 40 minutes late every single day.

This is costing her money as she cannot make the time up with children to collect from school and is causing all manner of problems for her boss who needs her there on time. I know of many other cases like hers too.

In addition, separate works are springing up in Hockley and Southend, compounding the problems further.

If only some serious thought was taken initially, all these major problems could be avoided.

I have the same discussions over and over. If you or I were making these planning decisions, we would plan all works on one major route at a time, leaving one or two others free for use.

We would talk to neighbouring councils and work together to keep busy routes free and so on.

The argument may come back the works would take many weeks longer that way, costing more money.

I disagree. The cost to businesses and the money lost by Rayleigh retailers during this project far exceeds any extra costs to the council.

In fact, for many of Rayleigh’s retailers this is the second big hit their businesses have had to take during the gas pipe replacement, following the High Street closure.

This caused huge losses in trade and now without one or two free routes in to town, they are seeing their valuable customers heading out of town to spend their money elsewhere once again. All this and a recession to contend with too!

In addition to the obvious disruption, matters are being made worse by the people heading up the workforce.

Recently, one whole stretch of road had to be dug up and redone almost immediately, after the cement mix used was all wrong and the pipes and road began to sink.

Secondly, residents living within the latest works came home to find equipment and works vehicles on their property on day one.

Then after this issue was resolved, they came home Tuesday evening to find they were unable to use their driveways, or even park anywhere near their houses, after huge holes have been drilled in the road in front of their houses.

And this happened days before metal covers were available which would have let them still drive on to their property.

I am a family man and local business owner with many friends, colleagues, customers and suppliers in and around Rayleigh.

I repeatedly hear how things like badly organised roadworks affect people both personally and professionally.

It is high time the decision makers understood the responsibilities they have and gave more serious thought to all that they do.