Council to dig up road sitting on high voltage cables in ‘safety’ move
ROAD safety is taking on a new meaning in Crossgates as they’re going to dig one up with high voltage cables underneath it.
And a Fife Council officer admitted they’ll have to be “very careful” with their traffic calming measure on the B925 at Mossgreen.
It looked like the project was going to be too complex but the South and West Fife area committee have now given the green light for a raised puffin crossing.
Councillor Alie Bain said: “To start with we weren’t going to go ahead with this because of the amount of cables and pipes etc underneath.
“Have you found a way to shift them or are they going to remain underneath the road hump?”
Technician engineer Keith Johnston, from the council’s traffic management team, said: “On the underground utilities you may recall I emailed the ward councillors on this very subject.
“We discussed this with Scottish Power because the cables are high voltage cables so we need to be very careful.
“Scottish Power mapped it all out for us on the ground, with some yellow paint, so we could carefully site all of our designs for where all the cables and ducting should go.
“What we thought was going to be a real issue, based on the plans we had, on further investigation we’ve seen this project is quite possible to do.
“So we’re quite confident our works can proceed around the cables but of course our team will be very careful in how they dig the road and make sure that any issues we deal with on site as the time comes.”
Cllr Darren Watt: “This project has been a long time coming but one that the people of Crossgates, and particularly on the Mossgreen side, will be delighted to see.
“I’m even more delighted my proposal for a raised puffin crossing has been considered and hopefully accepted as this will act as a dual purpose as not only a safe place to cross but also allow for more traffic calming in an area where there have been a lot of concerns from local people.”
Last year he said Crossgates was “more like Crossroads” with traffic in the village at “an all time high” and locals concerned about speeding motorists and dangerous driving.
The committee agreed to the promotion of a road hump order and pedestrian crossing notice to install a raised puffin crossing.
The measure will “help to address concerns of traffic speeds on this route” and allow pedestrians to cross the road without dropping to carriageway level.
Mr Johnston said: “This is a scheme that’s already been approved by committee through the area roads programme but we still require area committee approval to promote the road hump order.”
He added that proposals for more traffic calming measures, further along the B925 road to Kirkcaldy, would be included in next year’s area roads programme.