Not the best of starts this Tuesday morning when l find myself leaning out of a bedroom window shouting at the driver of an oversized lorry inching its way up the slope of our narrow and car-laden street.
Can’t you read the ‘Not suitable for wide vehicles’ sign l said? ‘Only advisory,’ he shouted back, ‘I am not breaking any laws.’
There were two of them – loaded with large concrete security barrier blocks – and l found them unloading inside the Bath Rugby Lambridge Training Ground on my way into town.
Contacted our two Green councillors – Joanna Wright and Saskia Heijltjes – only to find out the following:
Message from Wessex Water on storm overflow improvements, Bath RFC rugby ground, Lambridge:
“We are planning to complete essential work at the Bath RFC rugby ground in Lambridge on London Road as part of our investment programme to prevent flooding and improve how the environment is protected.
This £1.3 million scheme is expected to start on Monday 3 July 2023 for a period of five months and will be predominantly located within the rugby club car park. It is unrelated to the supermarket development being proposed on nearby land.
This work will see additional storage for storm events built to allow flows to be returned to the sewer prior to being piped to a water recycling centre for treatment when the storm recedes.
Overflows are designed as a relief valve to protect homes from flooding. If there is too much rainfall in the system, the overflow automatically discharges into watercourses. This scheme is part of Wessex Water’s £3 million a month investment to reduce how often storm overflows operate.
How will the work affect you?
The normal working hours will be between the hours of 7.30am and 5pm, Monday to Friday. You may notice a slight increase in traffic to and from the site and occasional noise associated with construction activities, but every effort will be made to keep this to a minimum.
Western Power Distribution will provide a power supply to the site in October 2023, work that will require lane closures on London Road for a short period of time. We will be working with Western Power Distribution to limit the impact of these works on local traffic and will write to you again when the dates of this aspect of the work is confirmed.
You can continue to use your sewerage services as normal unless we tell you otherwise.
What should you do? You don’t need to do anything, but if you have any questions about our work, please call 0345 600 4 600 or visitwessexwater.co.uk/contact-us“
I understand that puts paid to rugby training on the site for some time too.
I think our councillors are going to make Wessex Water aware of the dangerous route some of its transport is taking.
Meanwhile l am told B&NES is carrying out an HGV study and will be counting traffic movements at different locations across Lambridge. I am pleased to add our lorries to that count!
Ending on some good news. That hole in the side of the London Road is finally being filled in. Don’t blame the National Grid work team either for the delay. Apparently it’s been a major repair to cables affecting half the city! They had to leave the repair on test to ensure everything was working before filling in the hole.
Wouldn’t it be a great idea is – somewhere on the barrier fencing – work like this couldn’t carry a bit of information for the public to understand what is happening. It would save people like me from distracting the team from what they were doing. Have to say, nothing but courtesy from them too!
