Tag Archives: Roadworks

MobLog

New Job, New Desk, New Traffic Jams

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New Desk

So after two days at the new job, I thought I’d share a picture of my new desk.

Each of the developers at my new job are equipped with a laptop, plus docking station, monitor and wireless keyboard and mouse. The idea is that the developers have something easily portable to take out on site if needed, but when docked, it also means that effectively you get a dual screen setup to work with. Desk space wise it is much better than what I had at SSE. The office is entirely equipped with modern curved desks, so even compared with the large desks at SSE there is plenty of space. Compared to the small desks that most of the guys on my team at SSE work with it is positively palatial.

I was expecting the first week to basically be training on the various products and bits of software that the company sells. However this morning, after a brief introduction yesterday, I found myself chucked in at the deep end with a bit of coding for a customer, in VB.Net no less. As is the way with small software companies, there is a bit of rush on, and it’s all hands to the pumps to get a project out the door. So despite the fact that it’s not in my skill-set, (although since I have VB6 and C#, so it’s not massively difficult) it’s a question of picking up a book, and getting it done. Anyway, by the end of the day I had a custom control up and running, and had only tripped over a couple of the differences between VB.Net and C#. Certainly it does look like I’m going to get quite a variety of different languages and platforms to play with, as before I went home tonight there was a discussion about a potential customer who are involved in publishing, and therefore run their business entirely on Mac rather than PC.

Wokingham Traffic Queues

About the only frustration at the moment is nothing to do with the job, but more that, thanks to South-East Water, the journey is not nearly as quick as expected.

Rather than the expected 15 minute journey, the past couple of days it has taken between 30 and 40 minutes, thanks to the closure of a short stretch of the A321 near Tesco. As a result, everything coming in to Wokingham from the south west side is being directed across the level crossing, and not surprisingly it is tailing back, resulting in virtual grid-lock at rush hour. It’s not going to get much better either as once they finish the three weeks on this stretch, they then spend another thirteen weeks digging up the road further up the Finchampstead Road. Whilst South-East Water is absolutely right, the work has to be done or risk a main bursting, it is still going to be a long sixteen weeks…

General

Traffic Chaos Gets Worse

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Things got a whole load worse this week with the closure of the A327 that I blogged about last week. Whilst we had a nice break over the Bank Holiday, with the road being reopened from late Friday afternoon until Tuesday morning, the barriers were back up on Tuesday night. However another of the badly timed local roadworks made it’s presence felt today, with three way traffic lights in the middle of Finchampstead for water main renewal – Finchampstead being the unofficial way most people have been going rather than the official diversion which goes via Reading and Hook. (As an aside, it is worth noting that the New Mill has officially published directions to it’s customers telling them to ignore the diversions and come through Finchampstead – is anyone actually following the official diversion?)

Interestingly, Finchampstead Parish Council spotted that there may be a problem and have the following statement on their site:

From Tuesday 2nd August, the 12 and 15 inch water main through Finchampstead will be relined by SE Water’s contractors Pipeway, … this task will take 5-6 weeks. Inevitably, temporary traffic lights will be in use at times.

To compound the potential traffic disruption, from Monday 15 August the A327 at Eversley Street (southwards from Bluebeckers), is to be completely closed (by Hampshire County Council) for up to 8 weeks to allow for major road repairs. Although some HGV traffic will be diverted, we can expect significant volumes of extra traffic to use Fleet Hill/The Village and also Longwater Road (and hence other Finchampstead routes), in their attempts to find alternative routes past the closure. This closure will be featured on TV news programs to alert drivers.

Clearly, there will be 4 weeks where these works overlap. WDC will closely monitor the situation.

For those who are wondering, WDC is Wokingham District Council, and from previous experience when complaining about badly timed roadworks, will take the tough luck, can’t be that bad attitude, when of course the staff involved, as with those at Hampshire County Council who planned the A327 closure, don’t actually have to sit in the road works every day.

Of course as anybody with children will know, the real problems will start next week, when with the two sets of road works in full swing, all the schools go back, so in addition to the extra school run traffic there will be a number of school buses, and parents parking dropping their kids outside Finchampstead School on the route that everybody is taking anyway. Quite frankly it will be absolute chaos, and I wouldn’t be surprised if there is an accident somewhere in Finchampstead as a result.

If anyone feels the need to complain about this chaos, the two people responsible for the A327 are James Holt and Martin Milner of the Hampshire County Council Highways office, whose phone number is 01256 764444, and e-mail (thanks to Swallowfield Parish council) is hampshirehighways.north@hants.gov.uk. Whilst, as I’ve said, I fully accept that these things need to be done, it surely doesn’t take much to realise that if you close a major road, you should minimise any other disruption in the area.

Politics

Travel Chaos

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Longwater Lane Gridlock 1

Why is it that local councils seem unable to communicate with each other? In particular over roadworks.

Before we went on holiday, we had seen signs warning that the A327, that runs through Arborfield and Eversley, would be closed for “up to six weeks” from 15th August. Whilst it was quite good that they were doing it when it would be quiet over the summer (aside from the last two weeks when the schools are back of course), it would still be fairly chaotic.

Anyway, I took a look at the weekend, and established that the official diversion route was on large roads suitable for the traffic, and went massively out of my way, but that it would be easier to go round back roads either through Finchampstead, or Swallowfield. This morning I went through Finchampstead, and it didn’t take much longer than usual.

Longwater Lane Gridlock 2

Tonight, all was going well until I turned into Longwater Lane, the road between Eversley Cross, and Finchampstead, to be greeted by the first picture. The second is half a mile further on, crossing the border into Berkshire. It was absolute chaos, with traffic queuing back towards California Crossroads, along through Finchampstead Village, and even round residential side streets. People were even resorting to using single track back lanes to get through.

Listening to the radio I found out that it wasn’t just caused by the closure of the A327. In addition, it seems there were roadworks on the diversion route too. On top of that, one of the other possible routes was also closed, and there had been an accident in Bracknell. As a result most of the roads to the south of Reading were jammed. Each closure was the responsibility of a different local council. I would have thought that anyone with any sense would have realised the chaos caused by the closure of one main road on the border of several council areas and consulted so as not to close any others whilst the work was taking place…