More overnight road closures have been taking place on the A259 in Rye and Winchelsea this week, with sections of the main road shut between 8pm and 6am.
In a repeat of events from November when the road was last closed at night, some drivers struggled with avoiding the roadworks, following the diversion, and getting up to date information about what was happening and where.
The overnight roadworks were one of the main issues you wanted to know more about when Rye News asked for questions to put to National Highways. You also wanted to discuss parking on the South Undercliff, speeding, making the roads safer for cyclists and the possibility of a Rye by-pass – more on all those next week.
For this week, Peter Phillips, one of the National Highways Route Managers in South-East England, answers your questions about the night-time roadworks.
Why do you have to close the whole road? Why not close one lane at a time?
It really depends on the nature of the work being done. If we’ve got a work force out at night it’s better to try and get a number of jobs done at the same time and do as much as possible.
It’s a question of safety too, with a lot of construction traffic moving around. If we can we will try and keep the road open using traffic lights but sometimes it’s a simpler message which is appreciated by drivers. It’s easier to get it across that the road will be closed rather than to expect delays.
Finding out information about the road closures is a real challenge.
We need to get the message across to different types of drivers – regular commuters and local people, along with occasional motorists and people travelling through the area. The signs are our main way of getting the info out. We use the local press where we can, and local authorities, as well as social media.
The online information and travel apps are either too vague or plain wrong. One site says one thing and another says something different. There’s no definitive answer.
Things do change and work is cancelled because of the weather or other emergency work. The National Highways website is always the most up-to-date but it is a challenge dealing with third parties and there can be miscommunication. I will feed that back and it’s something we can look at.
The diversion route when you close the A259 is ridiculous.
Across the country we have a set of diversion routes we sign. In this case we wouldn’t want lorries using some of the local roads, so the official diversion is quite lengthy and deliberately so – it works more for longer distance travellers. In theory we could say “Here’s the official route but you can get through this way” and then everyone would end up taking the quicker route. It’s a very difficult message to get across.
You put road closed signs up and then the road isn’t closed.
It’s something which annoys me all the time too. I drive along a road and see a sign that says road ahead closed and then suddenly it’s not. We quite often get people drive right up to a closure to still see if they can get through, and then they end up having to go back a long way to get around it. Again it’s not an easy message to get across.
Why do you look after the A259 and not East Sussex County Council?
It’s part of the UK Strategic Road Network, which also includes motorways and dual carriageways. In Rye and Winchelsea it runs through some very narrow streets which is a challenge, especially for HGVs and lorries. It’s an important road and carries a lot of traffic.
Just because it’s a single carriageway road running right through the town, it is still an important link and hence that’s why it’s still part of the Strategic Road Network. When we do works on it, the problems caused by the diversions show just how essential this bit of road is.
Next week in Rye News
More from Peter Phillips from National Highways answering more of your questions – on parking enforcement on South Undercliff, speeding and road safety.
Image Credits: James Stewart .