Traffic lights cause woes for South lakeland commuters

11:58am Thursday 4th December 2008

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FURIOUS employers were left without staff this week when temporary traffic lights brought a South Lakeland town to a standstill.

A set of temporary traffic lights installed by workmen contracted to United Utilities, on the A591, at Cooks House Corner, in Windermere, caused delays of up to three hours for commuters. Cars were queued up the A591 as far as Staveley.

Exasperated bosses, trying to keep businesses afloat during an economic crisis, were left with empty offices.

Andy Dixon, of Impact Development, said that by 11am on Tuesday he only had six people in work, out of 100 employees. The others, who normally arrive before 9am, were still stuck in their cars or had abandoned all hope of reaching work and had returned home.

Despite the delays coinciding with the first heavy snows of the winter, Mr Dixon insisted the delays had little to do with the weather.

“Businesses can’t afford to have any people off in this economic climate,” he said. “It is the case that we have only six people in, most of them are stuck on the road. It is madness. It clearly isn’t the snow it is the road works.”

Mr Dixon said the people responsible for the lights, or the police, should have controlled the situation once it was clear there was a problem.

“What I’m most frustrated about is that something isn’t being done about it,” he said. “The police should be aware of the tailbacks and do something about it. It is very frustrating for a small business. It is very annoying. It is not what you want when everyone is trying to survive in the climate.

“Whoever has set the lights up hasn’t given it any thought to the implications. I thought it was completely irresponsible and no one was doing anything about it.”

Paul Holdsworth, town centre manager for Windermere, said that this incident should demonstrate to contractors who work on the A591 in the town not to use automatic lights.

“I have had a complaint from someone who said they had been stuck in traffic for the longest time ever.

“People should know that if you put automatic lights on that road it causes chaos, it always does. They should know to put them on manual from the word go.

“The message should be loud and clear for any contractor working on that road that if they do put in lights they should operate them manually.”

A spokesman for Cumbria Police said: “There has been a problem with how the lights are set up. It looks as if they were set incorrectly. The situation was compounded by a break down in Bannerigg, which we also attended.

“We have had officers there controlling traffic, though I’m not sure what time from, and they stood down at 11.30am to let the lights take over.”

A spokesman from United Utilities said: “We apologise for the inconvenience - we had a problem with a rising main that connects to a pumping station. We needed to repair this immediately in order to maintain services to our customers and this is why we have had to put in temporary road works.

“There were also concerns that there was a leak on a gas pipe and we had to ensure the area was safe before we could begin our repairs.”

A Cumbria County Council spokesman said there had been a problem with workers fracturing a gas pipe when digging up the road. This caused unexpected delays and meant the traffic lights would be in place for longer than first thought.

He said: “The temporary traffic lights were put up so essential sewer repair work could be carried out. Unfortunately this will now take longer than initially planned due to problems with a gas pipe.

“Once the situation with the gas pipe is resolved contractors will be on site to repair the sewer and the traffic lights will be removed at the first available opportunity.”