Whoever designed the new Aberporth roundabout must think that its possible to suspend traffic in mid air using a Star Trek tractor beam - its not! There has been substantial rebuilding, relevelling, reinforcement to prevent cars disappearing into a man made ravine. It still appears to be dangerous.
Ceredigion County Council are responsible for the work and used consultants to get the job done, or not done in this case. The Welsh Assembly Government funded the project and now have 'stumped up' additional monies for the badly designed project. The additional expenditure created by Ceredigion Highways Department amounts to £1.2M with another £500k in the offing. This puts Ceredigion Cabinet in a bit of a bind, how can they now complain of Assembly underfunding when they themselves are responsible for a badly designed roundabout, over expenditure and have to rely on the Welsh Assembly Government to bail them out.
5 comments:
At least they've got a roundabout... not a disaster area defined by concrete slabs like the Cardigan Tesco exit.
I was in Cardigan yesterday for Ffair Barlys when some of the streets were shut off. I can't imagine the chaos should there be a major construction ongoing in the town e.g. a new hospital. The current situation needs to be addressed but the Tesco junction faces the same problem, how do you build a roundabout on a hill?
I have observed the development and have the following questions/comments:
Why was prime (expensive) filling material used in raising the roundabout when cheaper alternatives could be used for at least the base parts of the roundabout? (it could have saved thousands of pounds)
Why were deep road trenches dug up, then covered up (with nothing laid) - was it as this point the contractors realised the road had to be raised, and needen't have dug trenches!?
Why did a brand new pavement (built for the new roundabout) had to be dug up last month to lay cabling - was it at this point the contractors realised electric cabling for the roundabout lights needed to be laid?
Why doesn't the pavement carry on to Tremain?
How much has it cost to light up the roundabout with temporary lighting and generators (including paying the individual to switch them on every night)?
Who is really managing this project? Who pays the clerk of works?.....erm, is there one?
If it is the consultants fault (as the councils finance chief is suggesting in his Tivy Side interview), will the council take legal action against the consultants....which begs the question, what detail was in the contract? And who was in charge, the council or the consultants?
EJ - You have detailed forensic questions which should be answered. I am not in a position to do so but they should be forwarded to Ceredigion Highways for comment. Will you do so? I think there is scope for the Council to explain what is going on.
These guys are clowns. I suspect the Tafia's influence.
The new road to the airport was built. Then traffic was diverted along it whilst work was done between the roundabout and Blaenannarch. All very sensible, you might think. But a couple of days after the diversion started, they closed off one lane of the roundabout/airport road to do yet more work on it. Why the hell did they not finish that road completely before diverting traffic along it?
They've pulled many similar stunts. The past three or four weeks they've been doing yet more work and closed off lanes and half the roundabout. Yet most of the time the lanes needn't have been closed and the roundabout could have stayed completely functional.
My best explanation is that they decide that they have 6 weeks of work to do and that for a couple of days during that time they need to close parts of the roundabout (to install the lighting that should have been installed in the first place) so they close off the roundabout for all 6 weeks because they don't know exactly when they're going to work on the lighting.
I learned today that apparently there was recently a display of UAVs at the airfield yet rather than fly to the airport the attendees had to fly to another airport and then endure a long bus journey.
I thought New Labour was inept, but these guys are so far beneath ept the distance is measured in light years.
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