Roadworks blocking driveway

garak112

garak112

garak112

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Joined
10 Oct 2011
Posts
936
About 2 and a half weeks ago we received a letter telling us that the local DNO were about to start digging up our road for scheduled capacity upgrades and that access would be maintained. No problem I thought, we'll still have access.

They started at the top of the road and dug a trench and have since moved slowly down the road. They've provided drive plates over the trench to the very first house on the road but none of the others after it, so access hasn't been maintained.

They also aren't moving the fencing down the road as they go, instead just extending it even though they've filled in the start of the trench now.

This morning the bin men didn't take the bins from the blocked houses (I assume because it would have taken too long walking round the fenced off area) and there isn't really anywhere else in the street that all those bins could have been left for collection (up to 4 per house now).

My neighbour said one of the residents association tried to discuss it with the company doing the work and their response was along the lines of 'tough, we don't need to provide drive access '.

They haven't reached our house yet but the prospect of not being able to get our bins emptied for the remaining 4 weeks of the work is slightly worrying. That's in addition to the frustration of not being able to access the drive or garage from the road.

I'd be more understanding if this was emergency works but they've been long planned so I'd expect them to have thought this through better. I'm also expecting some new living room furniture and a few hundred quids worth of plants to be delivered next week so I've got no idea how they are going to get them to the house.

Is there anything we can do?
 
Contact your local council? They're employing these monkeys and should sort them out. Tell them what you've told us and hopefully you'll get those driver over plates.
 
Good luck with the council, we have just had essential gas pipe work done in our street and the surface has been left in an appalling condition, I have a little experience of working on the roads from my youth oh so many decades ago but also from the building trade and quite simple the hard core beneath the tarmac was not sufficient or compacted enough so in no time at all with heavy traffic passing over the new tarmac subsidence ensues, my council, Edinburgh, could not be less interested but unfortunately this is usual as I do not stay in what is considered an affluent area, far from it, so tough.
I have been fighting the council for four years to sort this out caused wholly by poor work by the roads department.
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I got home one Friday evening at around 5:30pm to find that Virgin Media (or rather their cowboy contractors) had decided to fence-off my drive and also make it impossible to park on the street. I found the number on their little board, called them and said that I expected to be back on my drive this evening and that if they didn't want to come out to resolve the issue then I'm sure I could "find a way" around the situation.
A van turned up about an hour later, plastic fencing moved, plastic coverings over open trenches put down and I was able to get on/off the drive all weekend.

I guess they found this option preferable to plastic fencing not correctly shielding their work area and a car driving directly over open trenches.
 
Well three weeks later, and five weeks into the six week project, they have done about half the road.

Whilst they were building a trench outside my house they blocked access during the day but left plates at night which is fair.

My neighbour on the other hand had her access blocked for days at a time because her car was in her garage, because they couldn't see it they didn't provide anything.

They've just put a card through the door to thank us for being patient during the disruption. It would mean more if they say entry more time actually working - some days they have not turned up until 10 and they leave every day at 3. I saw them sitting around watch videos on their phones for over an hour the other day.
 
Is it actually the DNO doing the work or a third party company contracted by them? Either way get on social media i.e Twitter and make a fuss to the DNO. I'm sure they will send someone round with plates. These companies hate negative press from social media.

Obviously the third party contractor company won't care. Bet they have those "Highway Maintenance" stickers on the back of their trucks too, in other words "****".
 
Put some planks down yourself to get over the hole, move the barriers out of the way yourself. I've done it before when we had derpy construction workers nearby.

Not much they can do about it except keep putting them back :D

They are contractors and they don't care. So don't care back.
 
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Record their actions. Tell the people paying their wage.

I bet you they will be employed to do 8-5. But they don't. Get paid for more days due to work "over running"...

This is the problem with these types of workmen in the UK. They know they can play the system, so screw the rest of us.

Ever wondered why large motorway projects take months and months longer than schedule? And cost millions more?
Because the workers can't be bothered to actually work hard.
 
It's not only contracted road workers who play the system either :/

They got rid of government employees and replaced them with these people, it was supposed to be a saving (lol).
 
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