A lethal combination for Dickensian Weekend

With the approach of the festival and thousands of visitors coming to the town next weekend, we have the potential for a serious accident, right in the town centre.

The combination of poor road markings, signs hidden by scaffolding and masses of people - we have a problem.

The County Highways Department were clearly warned ten days ago and have still done nothing. They need to act now.

As has been reported below, I visited the County Hall on Tuesday, 11th November, as any member of the public can, to present a petition from the people of Ulverston to the County Councillors. The petition concerned the state of road markings in the Town, some of which remain extremely faint.

At the time the petition was being taken there were a lot of examples of faint markings. Now there are fewer.

Most of those signing the petition could see the situation below:



Since then , scaffolding has been erected as shown below. This makes the situation ten times worse, especially with the approach of many people without local knowledge.



The scaffolding hides the no-entry signs.

The faint markings, the scaffolding and milling crowds form a lethal combination for road users that are not local.

Some have already been observed to turn left at this junction, meeting traffic head on. This is an accident waiting to happen.

Based on my experience of talking to the County Councillors about the cobbles the previous time, I decided to keep my address very simple.

Previously when I provided them with detailed information, they failed to listen so that they totally missed the point. Communicating with them seems to be very difficult: they are anxious to get on with the business of the day and the only Ulverston County Councillor there at this time, Wendy Kolbe, remained silent.

This time, I decided to use just one example to illustrate my argument - they chose to take it that this was the only thing I was reporting. We are not dealing with people with well-developed listening skills.

I pointed out how dangerous the situation is. Locals know that the only way to tell whether traffic is approaching is to look at the reflection in the windows of the chemist opposite. Pity the holiday maker that has been good enough to use the Stockbridge Lane Car Park and is now faced with the above situation.

I imagined that this illustration would make an impact.

It did.

The Chair asked me whether I had reported this situation.

I was staggered.

Surely the County Engineer was aware of the problem of the scaffolding, and hadn't Wendy Kolbe stated previously that she was aware of the problems with road markings and the matter was 'in hand'?

As reported below, to my surprise, Wendy Kolbe supported the claim that I was wasting the council's time because I had not reported the situation.

Does the county depend on local people to report all dangerous situations that are of their own making?

Did they not give permission for the scaffolding to be erected?

Having been painting road markings not fifty yards away at Mill St with a County Councillor on their tail, only a fortnight before , where they ignorant of the situation above?

Why did Pauline Halfpenny not strongly support the need for work immediately ?

Instead she talked in quiet tones about the problem with the cycle sign that instructs cyclists to go against the direction of traffic.

Sadly, our Councillors won't stand up and state loud and clear that Ulverston demands better service.

At home a report with photograph was immediately sent about the above problem and the following reply received on November 12th:

Thank you for reporting the defect. This has been logged on our system
and assigned to the appropriate office for action. In any future
correspondence please quote reference number 237611

Cumbria Highways Hotline

That was over a week ago.

The Highways Department claim in their official reply to me, read at the meeting in Kendal:

Inspections over the last 6 months have identified worn road markings in a number of locations . . . . within the town centre area. Orders for these were placed in August and the works have either been finished or are pending completion.

Whilst is (sic) accepted that some road markings in Ulverston will have faded to a greater or lesser degree, none are considered unsafe.

For the full text click here.

To this I reply: can anyone read any of the road markings on Brewery Street indicating that they must turn left into the car park.

If they claim that this situation is 'safe', then why were motorists presented with unnecessary road signs to read in the first place? Their attention is already needed for the pedestrian crossing coming up.

The problem is that officers are out of touch with what goes on here and the situation needs to change.

We need to keep peppering them with emails reporting work what needs doing, and it's easy to do.

Send an email to contact@cumbriahighways.co.uk reporting the fault , please send me a copy and if the fault is serious and threatens safety, to our two councillors (wendy.kolbe@cumbriacc.gov.uk, pauline.halfpenny@cumbriacc.gov.uk ).

You should then receive a reference number as above.

I sent a photo to illustrate the problem. If you can't do this easily, let me know and I'll go out, take photo and report it myself.

We've got to keep them on their toes. It's not difficult and gradually Kendal will realise that Ulverstonians mean business.

In this particular case action to take place during the next week.

Does all this make sense to anyone other than me?