Wednesday 12 March 2014

Horrendous back up on A590 again - "it's not a police matter"

Here's someone else's attempt to get some sense see below:

I've contacted County Councillor James Airey with the emails below and await his response

I've also talked extensively for about thirty minutes to Cumbria Police followed by the officer at Ulverston Police Station and both state that this is not a police matter but the responsibility of the Cumbria Highways Department whose head is Andrew Moss.

The police recommend that we all contact him : Andrew.Moss@cumbria.gov.uk

The persons to talk to him that have clout are our two County Cllrs, so please write to them  as well

 James Airey -  James.Airey@cumbria.gov.uk  and
Mark Wilson - mark.wilson@southlakeland.gov.uk

Do nothing and we can expect more of the same.

For my part I will report on their action/inaction.

-------- Original Message --------
Subject:Fwd: Roadworks Traffic Control A590 Ulverston
Date:Tue, 11 Mar 2014 17:50:17 +0000
From: local person
To:ha_info@highways.gsi.gov.uk


11th March 2014
    re my email below ,once again some kind of roadworks outside Ulverston has jammed up the town. At 5pm I was/am unable to get from my house on the East side of town to the health centre on the West. The ONLY route is via Tank Square.
Why can't the contractors use their common sense and get traffic out of Ulverston ?
A parallel question is - why don't you supervise them more closely ?


-------- Original Message --------
Subject:Roadworks Traffic Control A590 Ulverston
Date:Thu, 06 Mar 2014 17:00:30 +0000
From:



    Every time there is traffic control of road works on the A590 near 
Ulverston ,congestion is caused on the Tank Square and Booths roundabouts .
    Today ,for example ,roadworks at Newlands less than 1 mile North of 
the town caused long queues to form which soon reached Booths roundabout 
and then Tank Square. When this roundabout stops ,the whole town becomes 
gridlocked ,it is impossible to get from one side of town to the other.
    I queued for 25 minutes to get from Ulverston to Greenodd and there 
was no queue at all in the opposite direction. On my return 20 minutes 
later I came straight through into Ulverton where the A590 was backed up 
to Three Bridges.
     A child could tell you that traffic going out of Ulverston should 
be given priority over  incoming traffic . Your contractors' traffic 
control people are fully aware of this I am sure,  but it is apparent 
they couldn't care less.
    We all know traffic control is needed to protect the workforce but 
it needs more supervision from your dept. Operation of signals should 
take into account tidal flow of traffic and the effect of build-up on 
nearby junctions.
Please take this into account when giving contractors licence to control 
traffic.

signed local person

1 comment:

Geoff Dellow said...

The police claim that if there was an emergency they would be able to get through. This is definitely not true: we can describe a situation where they would be delayed at least a minute. Long lorry comes onto roundabout traffic follows behind it. Police can't get past lorry. Lorry can't move backwards or forward to allow police past. What the police really mean is that they've never experienced the problem not that it couldn't happen. Such is the nature of all roundabouts operating under traffic gridlock conditions: something that doesn't happen with roads crossing each other because "do not enter this box unless you can avoid getting stuck in it" Something people do follow - By it's nature the same cannot operate on an island.