Friday 24 October 2014
Media Enquiry from Open Lines Column, Guernsey Press:
Now that the dust is starting to settle on yet another dreadful traffic diversion, although the good folk out in St Peter's still have some way to go, may I suggest that in future much more thought should be given to diverting the pipeline or cable instead of diverting traffic. Now there's a thought!
Why do we bury such essentials beneath our main roads when seemingly obvious alternatives present themselves. For example, take the present path of the cable being laid east-west towards the Airport and beyond. It runs directly beneath the Forest Road, so traffic has been diverted westward via St Andrew's, and onwards via the narrow lanes around the north boundary of the Airport as far as St Peter's. Traffic coming the other way (mostly on the pavement) finds its way eastwards against the increasingly angry flow, and for St Martin's it branches along La Villiaize Road and into the narrow lane, Chemin Le Roi. Not surprisingly, the diversion has caused considerable delays and confusion, especially at bus stops and when driving from St Martin's.
Now by coincidence, Chemin Le Roi runs closely parallel to the Forest Road and is linked to it close to where the trenching started, by Les Pieces. It is worth nothing that there are other links as far east as La Route de Cornus. Normally, Chemin Le Roi carries very little traffic, so laying cable beneath it would have minimised the inconvenience caused by closing the main road. Better still, it links via the short length of Rue des Agneaux to the Airport perimeter where trenching could either have followed the path of the present traffic diversions around the north of the Airport, or perhaps just inside the Airport perimeter fencing as far as Route de Plaisance.
To be fair, perhaps the planners considered this as an option, but it would be interesting to know why they chose to disregard it.
Environment Department Response:
The route that JT planned to use when trenching from St Peter Port through to the Forest involved as many of the minor roads as possible to reduce the impact on traffic flow. Worked commenced well and virtually the whole route between Route des Coutures, St Martin's and Rue de Villiaze, Forest involved minor lanes such as Rue des Escaliers, Hurette Lane, Rue des Monts, Les Nicolles, Les Messuriers, Les Houards, Vue de L'Eglise and Rue du L'Epinel. The last remaining section that JT needed to trench along was Forval Lane, to connect from Les Nicolles to Rue des Monts. Unfortunately, after in depth and lengthy investigations, JT and the Department agreed that Forval Lane would not be an appropriate route for the works. The main reasons were the environmental impacts it would cause and the logistical problems that would be experienced. Therefore, the only routes that were available to JT were to excavate along Forest Road, Les Pieces Lane, Chemin Le Roi and Russel Road or along Forest Road only (between Les Nicolles and Russel Road). The first route is obviously much longer and more expensive and would have required the closure of the Chene traffic signals. The second option was a quicker straighter route that kept the Chene Hill and Russel Road arms of the junction open, which enabled works to continue simultaneously in Le Bourg. If simultaneous working had not been permitted then this would have resulted in a delay on the completion of this section of the JT network and the Longfrie drainage works for PSD. Taking everything into consideration, the second option was considered the best one.
JT were then forced to explore alternatives which they fully investigated but it resulted in the section of Forest Road being excavated between Les Nicolles and the top of Rue des Monts.
In regards to the JT works in Rue des Landes, Le Bourg and Le Chene, JT needed to provide a return route from the Forest to St Peter Port (via St Andrews to pick up key buildings such Blanchelande School and the Princess Elizabeth Hospital). Also a completely different route needed to be used to the one from St Peter Port to the Forest because JT need to provide a ring network so that if a cable on part of the route is damaged and is taken out of service, the service can still be maintained. JT did explore taking a route via Airport land but the Airport Authorities would not grant permission due to complex security and logistical reasons. It should be pointed out that in Rue des Landes and Le Bourg, Sure have also undertaken works to ensure that sufficient network capacity was in place for their future needs to avoid excavation works being required at a later date.
ENDS
