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2.10 Deputy G.C.L. Baudains of the Minister for Transport and Technical Services regarding road works at Le Dicq:
In relation to road works at Le Dicq, would the Minister explain the apparent contradiction between his statement that motorists could continue via Beach Road and the fact that "Road Closed" notices are found as far back as La Mare? Would he explain why the road was to be closed for 3 weeks for drainage works followed by 3 weeks for resurfacing instead of the works being undertaken concurrently?
Deputy G.W.J. de Faye of St. Helier (The Minister for Transport and Technical Services):
First of all, may I reiterate my apologies through the Deputy to his constituents and other members of the public who have been inconvenienced by these particular road works. In response to the first part of his question, Beach Road was not signed as a diversion route as it is contrary to established Island traffic management best practice to use small Parish-owned residential access roads for high volume diversionary routes. This practice is to ensure the safety of pedestrians and residents and to reduce nuisance to parishioners. Notwithstanding this and in the light of the serious traffic disruption that occurred during the first morning's rush hour, the Minister decided that an exception should be made to this established practice and announced this via a press release. Signage never indicated that Beach Road was closed. It indicated that the Coast Road was closed at Beach Road. This confusion is regretted and the traffic disruption was much improved following my decision to encourage traffic to use Beach Road, although I regret the inconvenience to Beach Road residents. In respect of the second part of the Deputy 's Question, late in 2005 it became apparent that urgent maintenance works were required to a pipe serving Le Dicq pumping station. These pipes carry 15 tons of raw sewage per minute to Bellozanne, servicing the entire east of the Island, and a failure could have resulted in a serious pollution incident. It was decided that in order to minimise disruption to the public the drainage works would be carried out in parallel with the resurfacing works, thus in effect work was carried out concurrently.
2.10.1 Deputy G.C.L. Baudains:
I thank the Minister for his answer. If we are pumping 15 tons a minute from the east of the Island, it just goes to show how overdeveloped St. Clement is nowadays. [Laughter] With regard to the concurrency of the work, Sir, would the Minister explain why no work relating to resurfacing at all started until the second week of the trench work for the sewer? There was a week during which the sewer was being repaired when no resurfacing work was done at all. Could he explain why that is because this morning, Sir, the road is open. The sewer work in the road is apparently finished, but of course the resurfacing is not. It might have been had it started a week earlier.
Deputy G.W.J. de Faye:
I regret in respect of road works we have to take things one step at a time. It was decided that in order to minimise disruption the drainage works would be carried out in parallel with resurfacing works. But the extent of the drainage works could not be determined until the road had been excavated and the pipes examined. It was, therefore, decided that the worst case scenario of 6 weeks road works in total should be planned for and anticipated. After the first week on site, the extent of the drainage works was known. This allowed the remaining site works to be reprogrammed, which included longer working hours and an earlier start for the resurfacing works. As a result of the above, an earlier than advertised completion date is now anticipated and it is hoped that the overall 6-week programme can be reduced by 2 weeks.