Roadworks - who is responsible for this complete mess?

I confess to only being an irregular reader of the Worksop Guardian. But now one infuriated by Bassetlaw, hence the email. This is perhaps more of a question for Grundi than a news item. A relatively simple question really: which escaped lunatic is responsible for the highways of northern Bassetlaw - as clearly the person involved should obviously be returned whence they came? 1. The '˜improvements' on Gateford Road, at Gateford, caused major traffic problems - not just in the '˜rush hours' and impacted heavily on bus services (that are already unreliable due to the blasÃ© attitude of Stagecoach to customer service). Parts of the roadworks were laid out in a way that larger vehicles emerging from side roads on to the former A57 had problems manoeuvring and could cause grid-lock. Not only that, the amount of time being taken - to be polite - ridiculous! A group of partially sighted geriatrics would apparently work faster than the personnel employed on the project!

2. There have been on-going roadworks at the A60/A634 crossroads in Oldcotes now extending into months - for a job which, on the face of it, should have taken a matter of weeks (and that is being very generous as to time-scale)! How come? As proved mid-afternoon on Tuesday, poor timing of the temporary lights can mean that traffic on the A60 (the main road of the two) can require two changes of the lights (thus taking five minutes to cross the junction) rather than the few seconds of the previous roundabout. If the roundabout is to be permanently replaced by traffic lights then OMG! - as: a) totally unnecessary and b) a lot of drivers on the A60 and stopped at a red light for no obvious reason, will (after minutes) ignore the signal and drive on.

3. Quite a lot of people drive from Dinnington to Blyth and then onward to various destinations (rather than going through Worksop to the A1M or to Tickhill and Bawtry). The only problem is that, at the moment, you can’t do that - as the A634 is closed between Oldcotes and Blyth. The diversion takes you on a magical mystery tour but you still find you can’t get into Blyth from the west. If you want to travel west to east - to go on say to Gainsborough - you end up having to go up to Bawtry. That is a significant detour and of course you end up on the A631 - with its blanket (and unnecessary) 50mph speed limit that you were trying to avoid as much as possible - by travelling on the Blyth/Ranskill/Mattersey route and joining the A631 further east.

4. Not finished yet! If to get into Blyth you try to go via Styrrup and Harworth, you find that you can’t easily get into Blyth from the north that way and it also looks as though traffic from the A1M (both northbound and southbound) can’t get into Blyth via the roundabout at the north end of the village. What did the people of Blyth do to Bassetlaw Council so that it seems that it is trying to damage Blyth businesses and to inconvenience its residents so much?

Disgusted

Dinnington

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