Fuming residents in a market town believe they have been cursed with the most dug-up street in the UK after enduring 27 separate sets of roadworks in the space of a year.
Motorists have been forced to take diversions of up to ten miles for full road closures and bear long delays at temporary traffic lights when a single lane is shut.
The constant works left 350-yard Station Road in Wymondham, Norfolk, looking like a ‘patchwork quilt’ until it was resurfaced recently – only for workers to move in and start excavating again just two days later.
Locals complain there is a lack of ‘co-ordination’ among the different organisations involved and the problem is exacerbated because their part of the town has ‘grown enormously’ in recent years, while the street provides the only direct route to essential facilities such as schools, doctors and dentists.
A Freedom of Information request to Norfolk County Council revealed the road was fully closed on seven occasions in the year, sometimes for up to six weeks.
Permission was given for another 20 sets of roadworks during the same period, the majority of which led to a lane closure and the installation of temporary traffic lights.
The biggest ‘offender’ was Anglian Water which closed the road five times, with two closures planned in advance for drainage improvements and three emergency repairs to ‘burst or leaking infrastructure’.
The road was completely resurfaced over the summer, including new lines painted by Norfolk County Council, only for part of it to be dug up again two days later by Anglian Water, according to residents.
Other utility companies carrying out work repeatedly on the road include UK Power Networks and Open Reach carrying out broadband improvements.
Network Rail was also responsible for one of the closures in the road which has a bridge going over it for trains heading to and from Wymondham station.
Wymondham mayor Suzanne Nuri-Nixon said: ‘There has been a lack of communication between the companies doing these works and Norfolk County Council, who have been poor at informing us about them.
‘There has been a lot of upset, anger and frustration among residents who have had to take long detours. This impacts everything from the school run to medical deliveries.’
A resident, who asked not to be named, said: ‘The roadworks here cause untold misery. I am sick of the sight of the road being blocked. I think we must have had more of them than anywhere else in the country.’
Wymondham town councillor Roly Frosdick, 65, said: ‘It has been so bad that there have been roadworks going on for about half the time.
‘Even the closure of one lane in Station Road causes chaos because it leads to traffic backing up on the main road through the town.
‘The problem is that the town has grown enormously in recent years and hundreds of the homes are in the southern end of the town.
‘Station Road is the only route for people in these homes to get access to all the facilities in the rest of the town like doctors, schools and dentists.
‘Everyone gets held up and school run mums get stressed. As councillors, we get blamed by some people and get a whole pile of abuse.
‘When there are roadworks with a lane closed, it becomes a bottleneck with delays of 15 or 20 minutes at rush hours. One time, the traffic lights failed, and I had to go out and direct traffic for an hour.
‘There seems to be a lack of co-ordination. I believe that utility companies and the council should work more closely together to try and do bits of work at the same time.
‘People also take unofficial short cuts down tiny roads which can’t take the traffic and that also leads to problems.’
Healthcare assistant Jean Greaves, 74, said: ‘The amount of roadworks here are just awful. I work in Norwich, so I face a huge diversion to get to work and come home again when the road is completely closed.
‘I tried to take a shorter route but the road was not suitable and I ended up taking my exhaust off.’
Sue Byrne, 56, who lives in Station Road said: ‘It does make the road quieter when there is no traffic.
‘But it is frustrating because they will finish one bit of work and then dig up the same stretch of road all over again for something else.
‘It seems to happen again and again and the road is left looking like a patchwork quilt. Sometimes there is no warning, and you wake up in the morning to find the road closed yet again.’
Residents of The Lizard, a narrow lane which goes off Station Road, said they had to put up with traffic using their street as a short cut when roadworks were taking place.
Social worker Donna Stapley, 50, who lives in The Lizard, said: ‘Drivers end up coming down here at speed even though our road is narrow and they rip up our driveway when they try and pass each other. We had to put up traffic cones to try and stop that.’
South Norfolk’s new Labour MP, Ben Goldsborough, is due to meet Norfolk County Council representatives tomorrow(THUR) to address locals’ concerns.
He said: ‘The chaos and confusion caused by the poorly planned closure of Station Road has made residents’ lives a misery. Just when you think one set of works has completed, another springs up.’
Residents are enjoying a rare respite from the upheaval at present but have been warned they face major disruption next year when the road will be closed for several weeks for the building of a new subway to allow pedestrians and cyclists to avoid a narrow path under the bridge.
A Norfolk County Council spokesman said: ‘We understand the disruption and frustration that these works can cause, particularly when they take place on roads that require a significant diversion.
‘Utility companies have a legal right to undertake work on the highway and we are unable to refuse permits except in very exceptional circumstances.
‘It is the responsibility of those undertaking the work to arrange the traffic management and communicate with those affected.’
A UK Power Networks spokesman said: ‘During the past year, UK Power Networks had one road closure in Station Road in collaboration with a water company for the construction of a new subway.
‘This was from August 19 to September 4 this year and involved diverting an underground mains cable and streetlight cable.
‘On April 3 there was a single lane closure from 8am to 4pm to disconnect a supply for a customer.’
Anglian Water, Open Reach and Network Rail have been approached for a comment.