Letters / Not good enough
Regarding the hugely disruptive road closures due to affect Vidlin next week (Road closure communication ‘lamentable’; SN, 5/10/2016), what makes these road works different to all those that have gone before on this stretch of road?
If the road is drivable before 9am, between 1-1.30am, and after 4pm, then it is drivable during the times in between.
Surely they can let people pass every now and then, maybe on the hour, and during the whole of the lunch, morning and afternoon tea breaks, which the road workers will undoubtedly be taking.
If it is NOT drivable during working hours, how will it become drivable at 1pm for half an hour? Doesn’t make sense.
We were given NO personal notice of this. Apparently it was on the radio and there’s a notice in the shop.
I found out because a neighbour tagged me on Facebook. She found out because she was tagged by a friend. Not good enough for something of this magnitude!
All residents should have had letters sent to them, so we could plan. I certainly would have changed my plans to have visitors arriving on the 10th, so that their stay didn’t coincide entirely with the road closure.
Vidlin folk, especially those on the Laxo and Skelberry stretch of the road, will be effectively forced to stay either in or out of their homes.
Shift workers won’t be able to get to or from their shifts, unless they time them to fit in with the road works. Doctors’, dentists’, hospital appointments can all be forgotten. Children on school holidays will have to either stay at home or not come home all day.
What about mail? The mail van arrives by 8.30am, but never leaves the area by 9am. Impossible, considering the area they have to cover. And what about parcel deliveries? Are they to be considered an emergency?
Or do we have to put those on hold till the works are finished? Fuel? Rubbish collection? Any number of other services and deliveries?
Who thought this would be a good idea? Certainly not anyone who had the residents in mind.
This way of doing road works is completely unacceptable. We have to be able to get in and out of our houses, even if we have to leave on the hour and come back on the hour.
There have been road works on that very stretch of road in the last year, so why do we need more? But aside from that, all road works on this road so far have allowed people to pass throughout the day, even if we had to wait a while. Nobody was trapped in their homes during those periods. What makes this set of works different?
Anyone from the road services care to comment? Head of roads services, Dave Coupe? We really do need to know. And it would have been nice to be personally informed in advance, so we could plan. This is not the sort of disruption you simply drop on people.
Joy Perino Saloschin
Skelberry
Vidlin
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