It's been a while since I posted about Castle Street and its problems. I know you'll be wanting to see how much amazing progress has been made in alleviating this black spot. Well I can tell you that, after the fourth delay, absolutely and definitely work will not start until 2020 at the very earliest and will almost certainly possibly be finished by 2025 that is assuming that the Highways Agency is still going then (they could all be drawing their pensions before this gets built) and as this is their most difficult project to date they might just swoon and faint with all the complications. Apparently the HA needs to "resolve technical and practical challenges" I hope that is official speak for pulling its finger out but I doubt it. To put this delay into some kind of perspective, this country will negotiate its exit from the EU within a year and a bit by 2019! A person might reasonably assume then that the delay is due not to technical issues but to a lack of political will. If this was in London then firstly the problem would never have arisen and secondly if it did it would have been resolved years ago. So, anyhow, I won't need to post about this for another three years, unless something happens again to delay things, which seems highly unlikely don't you think?
The glorious £250 million plan, in case you're interested, is, put simply, to drop the road at this junction by twenty odd feet so traffic can cross over it without traffic lights. Seems easy enough to this pilgrim but then I know nothing of the "technical and practical challenges". The video below allows you to fly along some future Castle Street, the way things stand this may the closest this plan gets to taking off.
Somebody will figure out a way to screw it up.
ReplyDeleteThe difference in trucks between here and there catches my eye.