A number of residents have been in touch with me in recent days to raise concerns about delays arising out of the temporary traffic lights at Markham Vale. I wrote to the Cabinet Member for Highways at Derbyshire County Council and have been advised as follows:
“The works taking place are roundabout improvement works in preparation for a development to be build adjacent Buttermilk Ln, Bolsover. These are major works which while in operation have been difficult due to on site issues, the most recent being the discovery of fibre optic cabling which carries a significant amount of the UK’s on line banking information.
The temporary signals are being manually controlled each day including weekends between the hours of 7am and 7pm, at night they run on a vehicle actuation system. These lights have been vandalised on occasion and batteries removed from at least one signal head which has an adverse effect on the remaining signal heads. The queues are such due to this being a very busy location plus the time taken between each signal head changing also added to this is the careless and dangerous manner of some drivers jumping the lights which affects waiting queues.
A Derbyshire County Council Clerk of Works is on site each day to monitor the entire site as well as traffic management operatives controlling the signals and who are trained to make necessary changes to the signals when required.
The developer is hoping to remove the temporary signals by 6pm on 22nd October and then utilise them for resurfacing works during night time hours only. Buttermilk Lane will remain closed until the end of November 2021 due to highway construction issues.”
Please be assured that I will continue to monitor developments closely as I am very conscious of the considerable delays which residents have experienced as a result of these works, but it is my hope that the temporary signals are removed this evening, as planned.
