Council Closing Main Road

[Happy]

Seems the council just close the main road there days when they are doing resurfacing works rather do a half width at a time with traffic lights or men with stop/go boards.

Just heard they are closing our main road in centre of village for a week. Our farm road got two ends to it that pretty much come out either end of village.
10 mile detour for most in the village and surrounding area to get to town unless you run the couple of miles through our place and with covid a hell of a lot more of them will be aware of it than when they did from centre of village the other direction last time.

Blocking it not practical. Scottish Water got access rights one end of it. SSE the other.
Some friends and neighbours I’d be delighted help out but can see a free for all rat run developing.
Would most of you be kicking up a stink with council about this and what should I be demanding from them?

 

[grainboy]

Oh good luck

 

[Drago]

Install Tol booth, charitable donation - after costs. Some one built a new road in an adjacent field to road works I think it was in Dorset a few years ago.

 

[Highland Mule]

Speak to SW or SSE and advise you're going to shut one road, then do it with a couple of round bales of straw. Your mates and family can move them with a shoulder if needed, but folks who don't know you won't.

 

[PSQ]

Prepare to be amazed at just how much your Council can achieve in a week!

They shut the road to the south of here for a week and a half, a mobile toilet block and 4 vans parked at this end, including the bloke who 'looks after' the road closed sign. Low loader, digger, wagons, road roller, lots of small plant coming and going, and all the locals looking forward to 4 miles of resurfaced road.
Come opening day and they've only filled 6 potholes and a few patches along the edges, and the local tax payers are wondering WTF they've been doing for the whole week? Playing cards was the best guess.

Compare and contrast with Switzerland, where they leave the roads open and employ multiple 2 man squads to improve the rural roads. Thats 2 men doing 2 different jobs simultaneously, not the UK way where we seemingly employ 12 men to watch the Polish guy in the hole, and f**k off at midday on a Friday.

 

[Princess Pooper]

Seems the council just close the main road there days when they are doing resurfacing works rather do a half width at a time with traffic lights or men with stop/go boards.

Just heard they are closing our main road in centre of village for a week. Our farm road got two ends to it that pretty much come out either end of village.
10 mile detour for most in the village and surrounding area to get to town unless you run the couple of miles through our place and with covid a hell of a lot more of them will be aware of it than when they did from centre of village the other direction last time.

Blocking it not practical. Scottish Water got access rights one end of it. SSE the other.
Some friends and neighbours I’d be delighted help out but can see a free for all rat run developing.
Would most of you be kicking up a stink with council about this and what should I be demanding from them?

Get council to put no public access signs up your road. Our little (public) lane had a similar issue when they shut main road for several weeks, council put signs up before the closure to help reduce 'rat run' traffic as it is all single track. It helped although not eliminating all 'foreign' traffic.

 

[melted welly]

Resurfaced road past here few yr ago. The week before resurfacing, the road was also shut. This was for a lad on a digger to scrape the the edges, joined by a Terry Hurlock look-a-like on a brush, a fat lad on a shovel and 2 tippers to keep up with the vast volumeof spoil.

took all week to clear barely quarter mile. Could’ve done it all in a day.

dunno how they sleep at night.......coz of all the sleeping during the day mostly

 

[Exfarmer]

As cyclists we do not have to worry about road closures as they do not apply to non powered traffic.
I can only think of one time out of Perhaps 50 closures I have been through, that cars could not have reasonably passed with no issue. Nearly every time there is no work of any sort going on at all!

 

[Y Fan Wen]

You can understand the council's point of view when you consider the case of the driver going through a half width section who decided that it would be a good idea to compose a text on his phone. Loss of concentration, through the cone line and killed 2 of the gang.
Here, quite often they run a convoy system where you follow a guy on an atv who keeps the speed down to about 15mph. The atv just shuttles backwards and forwards.

 

[Scrow]

Sounds like a nice earner if you have a couple of kids willing to man the toll booth at peak times. Is it before the Scottish schools go back?

 

[TheTallGuy]

As cyclists we do not have to worry about road closures as they do not apply to non powered traffic.
I can only think of one time out of Perhaps 50 closures I have been through, that cars could not have reasonably passed with no issue. Nearly every time there is no work of any sort going on at all!

Actually it depends on the wording of the closure order as to whether cycles may pass. Under section 2 of The Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984

the authority may by order restrict or prohibit temporarily the use of that road, or of any part of it, by vehicles, or vehicles of any class, or by pedestrians, to such extent and subject to such conditions or exceptions as they may consider necessary.

 

[Exfarmer]

Actually it depends on the wording of the closure order as to whether cycles may pass. Under section 2 of The Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984

One of our members is an ex highway officer. The council can indeed order the total stopping up of highway movement, but 99% of the time they allow pedestrian traffic, horses and other non powered vehicles and anyone who has a need to use that Road. After all most of these closures have to allow access to property and access to contractors vehicles

 

[sjt01]

The council are obliged to have a detour of the same class of road as is being closed, so those that know the smaller roads in the neighbourhood can use these.
The website https://one.network/ is a useful resource, showing closures, detours etc, who is responsible, for now and you can select future works.

 

[Bongodog]

Near us the council granted a 6 week closure to install a water main as there was no alternative way of doing the work, suddenly after a social media storm it appears there is an alternative and the closure has been cancelled

 

[TripleSix]

They've just had a main road up here closed for a couple of weeks, they've done a few large patches, they had time to resurface the whole thing...

They would not let any traffic through during the closure, no farm traffic, no residents, nobody.
A proper pain in the arse

 

[primmiemoo]

Get council to put no public access signs up your road. Our little (public) lane had a similar issue when they shut main road for several weeks, council put signs up before the closure to help reduce 'rat run' traffic as it is all single track. It helped although not eliminating all 'foreign' traffic.

It's a bit of a lottery about signs. The local depots with people who have local knowledge are rarer, so it's more likely the minimum will be put out after a quick box ticking exercise.

There's also much less coordination with parish councils to check local traffic patterns.

There are also [modded] types who move the signs cos their bliddy big egos get in the way and they think they're exempt from not using that tiny road for their gurt Fendt or JD (with mega slurry tanker/quadruple gang mower/20 foot wide rake/etc)/Hwe're hretired hnow SUV/single child on board Chelsea tractor, etc, etc.