Twinnies Bridge Update
The Cheshire East Highways team have been working on getting the Styal Road section re-opened, but they are waiting on permits from the Environment Agency and more importantly the manufacturing of the masonry blocks.
In the meantime, the Green Claims Team have managed to track down the details of the vehicle that caused the damage. This means that we can claim the costs of the repairs rather than paying them out of the Highways budget. This is often a lengthy process, but our team have a great track record of making sure the driver pays – not our constituents.
While we understand that the traffic lights are frustrating, I hope you can see that the team want to get the work done as swiftly as possible and as safely as possible.
Chris Hilliard, RoW Cheshire East Councillor, Lacey Green Ward
I’ve had i confirmed by Cheshire Fire & Rescue that the police attended the scheduled and took the vehicle details. So I don’t understand why the “Green Claims Team” are claiming credit here. Why did it take almost circa 10 weeks to get the temporary traffic lights up as there was no change to the damage caused by the initial accident. Come on Chris. Tell us the truth about the 10 weeks it tool CEC highways to access the need for traffic lights. The accident happed on Friday 29 September. That’s more than 4 months ago Why only up date us now?
We’ve been updated because I’ve chased the highways team on this issue to see where they were upto, and because a resident specifically asked about the costs of the repair and whether we were reclaiming. The reclaiming takes time and a fair amount of work dealing with the relevant parties (insurance etc). Our claims team have a good reclaim rate I believe, and I wanted to reinforce that the residents aren’t going to pay out for this repair. Thee Highways team are beholden to the company producing the masonry, and the Environment Agency for permits, meaning they can’t get the bridge fixed as swiftly as any of us would like.
Traffic lights wise, I have a feeling they re-assessed the risk. I’m not a highways safety officer, so without digging further in, I can’t answer that question – but feel free to email me and I’ll take that further.
As for why no updates until now – firstly, as I mentioned earlier, this is a response to a question two residents posed to me recently. Secondly, Highways don’t proactively message about projects that haven’t been completed or moved on significantly – I would suggest that’s partially due to updates garnering negative responses. I tend to be quite open, and I want to give residents relevant information as I get it. That means sometimes it won’t be the answer we want, and that it might not answer questions you have. As such, I hope you’ll understand this and come to me with questions rather than suggestions that I’m not ‘telling the truth’ when I’m providing the community with the same information I’ve been given.
Chris Hilliard
Thanks for the update Chris