Thursday 16 July 2015

No road problems in East Ipswich???

When our local Labour County Councillor, Sandra Gage asked Suffolk County Council why local Councillors did not receive a weekly update on traffic issues in Ipswich (like we used to when Labour run Ipswich was in charge of the highways) she was informed there was no need for updates as there was little going on currently in East Ipswich until work starts on the Argyle Street/Woodbridge Rd junction.

What a load of rubbish!

I drove home from town yesterday evening at 8pm and in the two miles to my house I witnessed:
Christchurch Street - closed - major roadworks
Duke of York Pub - Woodbridge Rd down to one lane with 3 way temporary lights
Rushmere Rd/Woodbridge Rd/ Cauldwell Hall Rd roundabout - gone! Road dug up, part of Woodbridge Rd closed
Cauldwell Hall Rd- down to one lane, 3 way traffic lights
Whitby Road - part of it down to one lane on a busy junction.

So plenty of work going on but the Tory County Council do not feel they need to inform local Councillors. Also many residents would have noted that many roads in Ipswich have black pipes at the end of them, these are used to count traffic - an important collection of data - but why are the County collecting this data? To help plan a northern road that is much needed so we can get on with building homes on the Northern Fringe? No it seems the County have been given a very short time frame to come up with a plan to gain more funding from the Government for the Gummer proposed wet dock crossing!

Gummer and local Tories accused Ipswich Labour that our plan of building council homes was a vanity project, well building a wet dock crossing when a northern road is needed is the biggest vanity project I ever heard of in this town.

I am sure Mr Noble the Tory County leader would not be happy if he had not been informed of local roadwork schemes in his own leafy village then why is it acceptable for Ipswich Councillors to be kept in the dark about roadworks in our town?

Going back to the Argyle Street junction - what is the plan? The first one wa saw over 2 years ago, seemed to have been designed by map only as there was no mention of the pedestrian crossing 30 metres further up the road outside St Helen's School!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

What's the plan for Argyle Street? Well... er...

http://www.travelipswich.co.uk/what-is-happening-and-where/woodbridge-road-argyle-street-junction/

Very interesting which members of the Tory group called here here when Cllr Gage suggested that Kier MG should lose their contract...