Watery Lane Worries

February

7

23 comments

There was nearly an hours discussion at Rawreth Parish Council last night about Watery Lane:

  • Disappointment that there was no-one there from the County Council
  • Discussion about possible solutions and sharing of local knowledge
  • Concern about how it is affecting Rawreth residents and businesses. One lady explained how, because lorries couldn’t deliver animal feed for over a month, she had to load half a tonne of feed herself into her own vehicle.
  • About the author, admin

  • Admin, is the road still closed? Rawreth Lane, A1245 and London Road were manic last Friday evening, which I assume was partly as a result of Watery being closed.

  • It’s absolutely disgraceful that the council are not doing anything about this issue. The traffic on the Rawreth Lane is getting worse by the day, to the point now where it is beyond a joke. It takes me around 15 to 20 minutes to get out of the centre of Chelmsford to the traffic lights at the Rawreth end of the Rawreth Lane during “rush hour”. It then takes me at least a further 40 minutes to travel the 1 mile to my house on Caversham Park Avenue, just off the Rawreth Lane. The fact that the council are saying the issue with Watery Lane isn’t going to be resolved until the summer is simply ludicrous, you can obviously tell none of the council members or people involved in making this decision live near or have to travel on the Rawreth Lane! The very least they need to do is get Watery Lane back open as soon as humanly possible, then sort out the mini-roundabout junction at the Rayleigh end. Have they never thought about adding a slip road onto the Hullbridge Road to ease the traffic on the roundabout? I’m no road planner, but the current situation is insane and something needs to be done soon!

  • Kris & Caversham – I’m glad I’m not the only one struggling with this! I’m surprised that more people haven’t commented here. It must be affecting many of those who live in and around Rawreth Lane.

  • Kris – yes, the road is still closed.

    Caversham , you are totally right , it is disgraceful. All I can say is that various people are trying to get the County to take some immediate action on this.

    It is the County Council’s responsbility. However it doesn’t help when our District Council sees it as mainly a Hullbridge issue – to quote one official email we received :

    Chris/Ron, this primarily affects Hullbridge Members though it falls within your ward

    Some people just don’t get it.

    There is a site meeting next week and it would be really helpful for a member of Rawreth Parish Council to be there, because of the local knowledge that person would have. But I’ve heard tonight that there will be NO invitation for a Rawreth parish member to attend. Personally, I’m seething over this.

    Regarding a slip road at the Rawreth Lane/Hullbridge Road junction, this has been looked at but the cost of moving the underground cables etc there would be about half a million pounds!

  • I would think that Mark Francois has already written a letter or two. But there’s a limit to how much pressure any MP can exert.

    To be frank, there shouldn’t be any need for an MP to get involved at all, it is a County Council problem and they should be dealing with it.

  • If they won’t invite anyone from the Parish council then perhaps local residents could keep an eye out for the site meeting happening and just sort of “butt in”.

  • The idea of a slip road at the Hambro Parade end of Rawreth Lane has been proposed by myself at Town Council level. It was supported by all groups and put to District level where it again was supported. The idea was turned down due to the cost involved by the Highways Dept. The current idea from Highways is to put in a layby for buses opposite Hambro Parade and try to imrove the turning into the parade of shops. Neither will really help the evening queues in Rawreth Lane.

  • The terrible traffic today in Rawreth Lane and around Rayleigh highlights more than ever how we really need to address this problem!!
    Yes, today was exceptional due to an accident on the A127. However we really seem to be blaming lots of “exceptional reasons” on the dreadful traffic – “exceptional rainfall”closing watery lane (for 6 weeks!!??), “exceptional extra traffic” due to an accident (sadly not that rare an occurence) etc etc.
    The truth is without a serious look at the traffic problems and some intelligent thinking about the solutions Rayleigh will become gridlocked for an hour every morning and evening.
    We can’t possibly even think about extra houses on the land at the end of Rawreth Lane,before the current road and traffic problems are addressed.
    I can sympathise with Caversham above, I too travel to and from Chelmsford and become frustrated that the final mile of the journey takes double the time compared to the time it takes to drive the 17 miles from Chelmsford!
    I know there are no easy answers here, but County Council recognising the seriousness of the problem by turning up to the meeting would be a start!!!

  • It’s awful when you turn into Rawreth Lane and see nothing but tail lights ahead of you. How you curse all those cars in front stopping you from getting home. Funnily enough that’s exactly what the person behind you is thinking….there are are far too many cars on the road, all belonging to other people.

  • Personally I am not sitting cursing the others on the road, we are all in it together, all returning from a hard day at work!!
    I do however think that careful road planning, (before more building) proper drainage around new houses and proper road maintenance would allow all my other fellow road users to get home to our family in a reasonable time!

  • Apparently tankers were at watery lane on Friday 15th, however one of the residents complained about the noise, so pumping had to stop. Ongoing maintenance is the only way this road will be kept open. The county council are a joke leaving this road impassable for so long!

    Chelmsford to rarwreth lane 20 mins…….rarwreth lane to Hockley 60 mins. Through more houses into the mix…..ingenuous!?!

  • Hundreds of people are complaining about the inconvenience created by Watery Lane being closed but very little is being done about it. One person complains about the noise and the council take this as a good reason to act as it is saving them money on paying a contractor. Residents in Rawreth Lane and the surrounding areas have to endure the additional road noise, pollution and inconvenience through traffic snarl ups but who in authority cares about that? It’s an absolute disgrace. Our representative County Councillor should be acting forcefully make this a priority set the wheels in motion to sort out this farce.

  • night after night we return home from work to sit a jam at Rawreth Lane. It doesn’t seem to matter if its 4pm or 7pm there’s always a long queue that we’ve come to dread at the end of a long journey home from work. in the old days we may have come home and then gone out again maybe for a bite to eat but it really makes you think twice these days if you can really be bothered.

  • It’s interesting you say that Carole as I was talking to the owner of Peggottys fish shop near Asda last week and he said that for the past few weeks his trade dropped on every day that Watery Lane was closed. He then went on to say that most days are affected now because customers are being delayed on there journey home and not stopping off or as you say they cannot face coming out during the traffic jam periods to buy fish and chips. I wonder if this is having the same effect on the shops at Hambro Parade and in London Road.
    Admin, a good topic for a survey I would suggest.

  • Through traffic in Battlesbridge has all but ceased so trade here is badly affected.Garden centre pubs antique centre and farm produce.Not counting the inconvenience and increased costs by business at the Mousery.The county has let us down badly ,if it were not so serious it would be farcical ,which it is ,you could not make it up !

  • District Councillor Keith Hudson emailed us – “The road has been drained and the gullies cleared, the ditches (Private) are being dredged by County. I am advised that the work should be completed by Wednesday.”

    Better late than never….

  • Certainly not first thing, and I suspect not at all on Thurs. The road is *just* passable coming from Battlesbridge –> Hullbridge, but there is still a fair amount of water laying on the road and at least one nasty big pothole now under the water (that you can’t see).

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