Fillingham Residents to Petition County Council over Road Closures.

Here is a copy of the covering letter which will be delivered to Lincolshire County Council:

Dear

Mr Wills,

We

enclose a petition signed by residents of Fillingham. As you may be aware road

works in Fillingham High Street recently

resulted in its closure during three days and we understand that the work was

scheduled to take 2 weeks and will resume shortly. It involves the installation

of some kerbing to one side of the road only. Anyone who does not live in

Fillingham may not be aware that there are no 'short cuts'. There is one road

only through the village and on to Willingham, 5 miles away, with no turnings

off open to the public. Fillingham and Ingham are effectively a single

community and residents of Fillingham rely heavily on facilities in Ingham

which are used throughout the day and include the school, the doctor's, nursery

facilities, a shop, a garage, a salon, the church and 3 pubs. Not only that,

but we are also cut off from the shop/PO and petrol station at Hemswell

Cliff/Caenby Corner and the return journey to Lincoln is doubled from 20 to 40

miles. Some individuals make 3 or 4 such return journeys each day, traveling up

to 96 miles instead of 16. Additionally, services coming in to the village such

as Royal Mail, Curtis' butchery van, mobile library, couriers, Tesco bus, and

tradespeople are disrupted.

 The road closure is, we believe, unnecessary,

highly disruptive, expensive, hazardous to residents and others due to the

single track diversionary route, and was implemented without consultation or

adequate warning. It has proved very difficult to find out from the county

council when the work will be completed and during the 3 days when the work was

in progress, before snow halted it, 'Road Closed' signs were left in place for

miles around when the road was in fact open. If there is a legal reason why

single lane working, perhaps with a convoy system (which could be operated by 1

man, see attached plan) or stop/go boards, could not be used, then the work

should have been carried out much more rapidly and preferably at night. Those

planning the work clearly had no understanding of how badly it would affect us

and never bothered to ask. Responses to complaints made to the Highways

Department have been casual at best and insulting at worst. There are no

facilities in our village and almost every normal activity outside it incurs an

additional 20 miles of round trip, even filling up with expensive petrol!

If

anyone had taken the trouble to do a proper impact assessment, which would have

required consultation with the residents of Fillingham, we feel reasonably

confident that it would have been appreciated that, due to the unusual

circumstances of the village, lengthy road closure during the day would be

intolerable, especially for a period of 2 weeks, and a different plan could

have been determined. We understand that resurfacing work is scheduled for the

summer. If this has been planned in the same casual way, then think again. We

do not accept that we must endure lengthy road closures either for the

completion of the present work or for any future work, and if we do not receive

a satisfactory response from your department we will not rest in our efforts to

publicise this matter, and will explore the possibility of legal action. It is

simply not acceptable for the Highways Department to impose gross disruption

and expense on our community and those interacting with it, just because it

easier for them.

                                                                     

     With regards,

                                                             

Fillingham Residents Group.

Sorry if that's a little lengthy but I think you'll agree it says it all.