Thank you for continuing to sign our petition but don't forget it really helps our cause if you can take a tiny extra bit of time and include your reasons for signing!
In the meantime, confusion reigns. Will Civil Enforcement Officers descend on Montpelier Terrace, Upper North Street, and Spring Street from midnight tonight, when the Temporary Traffic Order comes into force for 2 years, to ensure that no health workers' cars, carers' cars, delivery vans, builders' vans, scaffolding trucks, and the like 'wait' between property numbers 87 - 90 and 102 - 105 in Upper North Street and on the east side of Spring Street between Hampton Street and Western Road? Without any signs in place, there is a bonanza in store for those Officers.
What about the temporary 2 year prohibition of eastbound traffic on Western Road? Today members of our group rang the bus company (the person answering the phone on a public holiday knew nothing about the diversion of 700 buses each day along the diversion route from 3 January), got on a bus along Western Road and asked the bus driver (who knew nothing about having to drive their bus along a narrow diversion route from 3 January, but no-one tells them anything until they are about to start the bus), and rang the taxi company. The taxi company, like us, thought the diversion of 850 taxis per day along the diversion route was starting not on 3 January but on 9 January.
We are waiting for replies from the Leader of the Council, the Deputy Leader of the Council, the Secretary of State for Transport, and the Chief Executive of the Council. Our MP is also waiting for a reply to her letter from Council officers, despite following up with them. We are hopeful that this Temporary Traffic Order, hastily put in place to come into force tomorrow, will be rescinded so the Council can reconsider its many other options for delivering its Western Road project without harming the health, wellbeing and homes of residents on this ill-conceived diversion route. As Council officers advised the Environment, Transport & Sustainability Committee on 21 July 2021 "The timing of construction for Western Road could be phased, for example, with the junctions of side roads which may be left until later in the programme."