Last year, Rye News reported on road works that were planned to take place on the A259 in three phases during 2018. The first phase was due to start in January but to date no work has taken place. The contractors A-One+, working on behalf of Highways England, have now informed local residents that ‘investigation works’ will take place from Monday February 12 until Saturday 24 February from 8pm to 6am each night.
The contractors have said that the A259 will be closed in both directions from Skinners Roundabout in Rye to the Brenzett Roundabout in Brookland. Access will be granted to residents living along the closed road but not for through traffic.
A-One+ have said that clearly signed diversions will be in place. The official detour, for those visitors not familiar with the roads and who are driving from Ashford, will be to Appledore then via Tenterden and Northiam. It’s a diversion of just under 25 miles in length – which adds an additional 17 miles to the journey. Obviously, if you are familiar with the local roads you can use Military Road, which only adds two miles to your journey.
Rye News have asked A-One+ for an update on the proposed second and third phases of the work, which was scheduled to take place in June along the stretch of A259 that runs through Rye and on to Hastings via Winchelsea. We are awaiting a response.
Photo: library image
I don’t seem to remember such total takeovers of B roads – never mind A roads – in the past. It must be that a total possession is now both easy and cheap, but that inconveniences everyone except the occupying contractor. There will be cases, I agree, where total closure is necessary – but “investigative works”? And why close from Skinners to the Brenzett roundabout – the first mile of closure would appear to preclude diversion via Camber and Lydd, which is surely preferable to the round tour proposed?
I have been trying to get a sensible answer from Highways England (my original enquiry was to A1) about this since before Christmas. They do not seem to understand my questions about why the road to the Camber turn off has to be closed when they are working much further on, or at least according to their original plans.
When I came home on Monday, having had to leave work early in order to get back to Camber before “curfew” there was no evidence of any cones etc closing the road either in Rye or at East Guldeford.
I would also like to know why there was minimal notice. It apparently takes 10 working days to respond to e-mails by which time the closure would theoretically be over, unless they just decide to do nothing again and close it whenever they feel like it.
It’s not realistic to do a 20 odd mile detour to get home to Camber, just for the sake of just over 1 mile of road being closed.
So good luck trying to get any sort of sensible response. They seem to have no consideration for the affected people or even be able to explain what’s going on as I had 3 different responses about the closure before including that they were parking there machinery there (strange when they were working near Brookland). The most recent being that the stretch from Skinners to Camber road would be closed in June!