Traffic Disruption

Written on 18 September 2023.

Written 20 September:

The work is finished and the temporary traffic lights were removed around 5.30pm on Tuesday, 19 September

18 September: Statement from Wiltshire Council

Marlborough has been suffering from major traffic disruption due to some emergency works to remediate a leaking gas main.

These are not “planned” works by their nature, and the gas industry have regulations in place to ensure their network is safe, so leaks have to be dealt with as and when they occur.

Wiltshire Council's Network Management Team have been dealing with Wales and West Utilities this morning (18 September) to seek answers about the way Wales and West and their traffic management company have managed these particular works. There has been an apparent breach of their permit conditions to manually control the signals and to have not worked extended hours or over the weekend to ensure the site was cleared as soon as possible – something we would expect with these works being such a traffic sensitive road. There are consequence for such poor practices as although Wiltshire Council fosters good relationships with all of our utilities, they do have considerable powers to ensure good practices are adhered to. All utilities are performance monitored and these are discussed at quarterly meetings with each utility, and from this monitoring, improvement plans are formulated if there is evidence that standards need improving in any area of their work.

Wiltshire’s Network Management Team were dealing very robustly with Wales and West this morning to get the situation resolved, and following this there will be a lessons learnt exercise with Wales and West planners, as the delays were unacceptable during these works and they are seeking to ascertain why good practice seems to have been overlooked in completing these works.

Should anyone wish to complain direct to Wales and West, they should contact complaints@wwutilities.co.uk quoting permit reference XY282001004444779-01

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