End nightmare trip down the road to economic peril
A FEW years ago, a beer company known for imagining the world would be a better place if it ran everything, focused on how roadworks could be done better.
It imagined a world where the gas board, water board and British Telecom (as they all were then) all dug up a road at the same time.
The punchline was that it was so effective that even an undertaker pulled up at the end.
That Heineken advert it’s a great quiz question because so often people assume it was a Carlsberg advert - came to mind again this week when in Rawtenstall.
I’m sure there are other parts of the county, or country, which are as blighted by badly-planned roadworks as Rawtenstall and Rossendale, but I can’t name any off the top of my head.
The idea that late in the evening, one of the few main roads we have through Rossendale, is clogged up by roadworks is an utter nonsense.
Be it the road to Burnley from Rawtenstall, or the road from Rawtenstall to Bacup, it feels as though roadworks in one shape or another have been a constant for a very long time.
Of course, some roadworks can’t be helped. In fairness, none can - the work needs to be done.
But how many times do the traffic lights fail and not work, thus making the problem far worse?
And why is it, when we do have roadworks, they remain with us for so long?
Take the road linking Holcombe to Helmshore - there have been roadworks, or rather traffic lights and a lane of road closed, for months.
Frequently, the lights don’t work, either causing queues or forcing drivers to take their lives into their own hands to get by.
Rossendale MP Jake Berry has a plan - to give the county council the same power London councils have to charge those who dig up the road, and fine those who over-run. It’s a plausible idea - but something needs to happen sooner.
The county council, as the highways authority, is supposed to know when all roadworks are taking place.
And indeed, the roadworks causing the most problems at the moment, on Burnley Road, are the result of county council resurfacing works.
Again, much-needed but County Hall seems to be ignoring sensible requests from Rossendale Council on how to minimise the hold-ups.
Rossendale leader Alyson Barnes said she and the council had asked LCC to get crews to manually operated the temporary lights because the flow of the traffic changes so often.
That hasn’t happened. So before we get into a world where the county council gets powers to fine other organisations for over-running roadworks, it feels like it needs to get its own house in order first. The Government allocated millions of pounds of Levelling Up cash earlier in the year for this area, which will apparently be used to improve the roads, especially the ‘gyratory’ in Rawtenstall town centre.
It seems hard to work out how you can improve such a complicated set of junctions which have the fire station in the middle.
One thing is for sure, it will involve roadworks.
And while it won’t necessarily affect people working at County Hall who preside over road closures, the ongoing roadworks nightmare here in Rossendale risks doing real damage to the local economy and, of course, the environment too.