LIFE IN MY NORTHERN TOWN
A FEW weeks ago I wrote a piece about the number of roadworks that blight our town and, in particular, Whitworth Road.
And’ just when I thought my spleen had calmed down after at least two weeks without any digging, I find myself grimacing and clutching my side once more.
The reason? The roadworks on John Street.
Now, I consider myself a reasonably educated person.
I have a degree and a good job and I can use a knife and fork without severing an artery and I understand that roadworks are a necessity sometimes – after all, most of our services run underneath our roads and occasionally things break and have to be dug up and repaired. I can live with that. The problem I have with the works on John Street is not the work itself, nor the single-lane system in place on the way down – annoying though it is.
No, it is the fact that a single lane system is now in place on the other side as well. Why? There are no roadworks there!
I can only assume that a team of planners have come along with their Teletubby notebooks and spotted a worker leaning on his shovel and putting one foot on the opposite side of the road and, after a three-hour meeting, decided that it was far too dangerous and therefore the other side of the road should be shut as well.
And, of course, when the works transferred to the upward side of the road, the cones stayed as they were to block one of the lanes going down.
It is the only reason I can think why the dreaded cones have suddenly appeared, causing chaos in the surrounding area.
It is symptomatic of the way that cones appear on our roads in everincreasing numbers – most of which are not needed at all.
Anyone who has used the M6 in the last 30 years or so will sympathise with my viewpoint here.
Most of the motorway is festooned with cones and you can travel for hundreds of miles before seeing a workman leaning on a shovel.
And then a few hundred miles more before seeing another one.
Don’t get me wrong, I am all for Health and Safety, but let’s be reasonable shall we – let’s keep the cones to a minimum.
Why not just put them round the work that is being done rather than the postal code.