Time to stop the wasteful road ‘improvement’ plans

Salisbury Journal:

I AM totally bemused by the A30 roadworks altering the junction layout into Barrington Road. This will inevitably affect Salisbury’s Christmas trade.
The primary cause of accidents is the obvious absence of a filter light into Barrington Road. By adding a filter and a minor alteration to the lights, westbound traffic could turn easily into Barrington Road without having to wait or cross the oncoming traffic flow. It is unnecessary to widen the road and costs, inconvenience and road accidents would have been minimal. This is an unnecessary expensive road layout change that will cause severe congestion throughout the city.
There is also the developing farce of the inadequate traffic design to enter or leave the London Road Aldi supermarket. When life-changing fatal or serious injuries reach statutory numbers then there will be another hare-brained, expensive and congestion laden road layout change outside Aldi. Planners have been warned many times of the road hazards at the site.
Why are our well paid ‘experts’ so divorced from reality? Do they occupy some sort of bubble where no one communicates with each other? Our limited highways budget is being wasted by poorly thought out road and planning developments. If both turnings had been properly assessed or improved by planners in the first place the money saved could have been spent more wisely on resurfacing Salisbury’s potholed roads.
Why are these ‘experts’ allowed to waste our hard earned taxes through their mismanagement of Salisbury’s roads. More importantly when is it going to stop? 

Nigel Walsh
Firsdown
 

Buildout farce

WITH all the grace of a humourless Ealing Comedy the farce concerning the “footway buildout” on Tollgate Road rumbles on, and as one of the two families most affected, I would like to add my piece.

My family has lived in this house for over 40 years. During that period there has never been an accident or incident at that point. Since the construction of the “footway buildout”, there’s been any number – there were four on the first weekend! Admittedly just buckled wheels and punctures, but we await something more serious. Were it not for a neighbour borrowing a sign from the contractors across the road, I’d hate to think what the final total would’ve been. Now I see that the contractors have taken the sign back and again we have accidents, though the latest is that someone has painted the kerb on the buildout (unfortunately with the wrong paint, and it will flake off, but I understand their desperation). Having insisted on building this thing – there was no consultation with residents whatsoever – surely the least the council can do is to warn people about it.

I wrote to Senior Traffic Technician Paul Shaddock at the council about what I saw were the problems, but received no reply. At times of austerity this is the kind of absurdity that makes councils a laughing stock – the majority of pedestrians don’t even use the buildout. And frankly, haven’t people around here suffered enough with the building of the college extension, the retirement home that we were assured we’d barely notice but actually is proving more invasive than a skyscraper built next door to your holiday hotel – and for two years, I’m told.

Not only shambolic, but wasteful and dangerous.

Peter Liney

Salisbury

Island danger

I WROTE to you [the Journal] on August 10 concerning a dangerous “island” protruding from the pavement into the middle of Tollgate Road in Salisbury, which you were kind enough to publish, together with a photograph. You contacted the highways dept who masterminded this folly, to get a patronising and disingenuous reply from them, stating that they had “informed everybody about the work” and that the final touches would be “completed in due course”.  Needless to say, no additional “final touches” have been applied. The structure is just as dangerous now as when it was put there. Numerous severe impacts have occurred,which will have meant that either the council will have received numerous claims for damage, or that people are driving their cars around with dangerous defects in their cars, or that the long-suffering motorists are paying for repairs themselves.  Similar structures can be seen around Bemerton Heath, all of which have substantial pillars on them to warn motorists of their existence. For some reason, either the council have decided Tollgate Road doesn’t merit signs, or that they just haven’t got around to it yet, in nearly four months. To make matters worse, the £7,000 exercise was a complete waste of time, as the children for whom the island was built emerge from a nearby passageway and cross the road to go up Fowlers Hill without going anywhere near the island.

The sooner it is removed the better. It is only a matter of time before a serious accident happens.

Colin Grant

Salisbury

No big horror

ONCE more unto Latchmore ditch, dear friends....

The posters go up, the trumpets sound, the drums beat ever faster. The talk is of conspiracy, vandalism, destruction, annihilation – the language of war. Truth was an early casualty.

The forces of darkness are gathering; anyone would think armies of Orcs (clad in green fleece jackets) were massing at the border, poised to desecrate The Shire.

But they are not, and this is not war.

It is a restoration scheme on a damaged river system, involving short term disruption in exchange for long term benefits, at a cost roughly equivalent to five weeks’ wages for Wayne Rooney, or two Stormshadow “smart” missiles.

Anyone who persists in portraying this as some kind of Armageddon should perhaps consider the tens of thousands affected by HS2 and the Gatwick/Heathrow runway, or the millions in Syria, and re-gain some perspective.

DC Coatham

Hyde

Staff shortage

I TOO believe that the reason patients fall is shortage of care staff in the ward areas (Journal Postbag, October 20).  I trained in 1966 in a large hospital. We had three intakes of more than 30 student nurses three times a year. Those student nurses were on the wards after eight weeks in the classroom.  We learned most of our theory on the wards where we were part of the ward staff and we were not allowed to leave patients unattended. I believe that the worst thing that ever happened to the nursing profession was sending the students to university. Also when the wards were busy matrons and their assistants rolled up their sleeves and nursed!

There are far too many “hangers on” now. The priority of all hospital staff should firstly be at the patients’ bedside. 

Name and address supplied

Chef’s bungle I HAVE a similar tale of woe to Annie Riddle’s (Journal Opinion, October 20), but in reverse.  Twenty-five years ago, when Salisbury Cathedral Girls’ Choir was just getting started I was catering for large numbers and made a huge batch of Bolognaise sauce to be used in shepherds’ pie, lasagne and moussaka over three days.  Living out of town at the time, and far from shops, imagine my horror when I realised I had just added three tablespoonfuls of that very same coffee and chicory essence to my pan instead of Worcestershire sauce!  After the immediate panic, I sieved my mixture and rinsed it under the tap before returning it to the pan and adding the correct ingredient. No-one ever complained of having eaten coffee-flavoured lasagne – perhaps they were too polite!

Tricia Dragonetti

Salisbury

Wildlife carers

THE Wiltshire Wildlife Hospital at Newton Tony is appealing for funds to keep their service going. For some reason there have been rumours that it has closed but it is still being run by Marilyn and Mike Korkis on a seven day week, 24 hour day basis. Marilyn often working overnight to give two-hourly feeds to needy animals.  There are never less than 100 hedgehogs, rising to nearer 200 over winter in their care, plus deer, badgers, even birds. We cannot let this service disappear for the sake of all wildlife and no-one else could be as dedicated as Marilyn and Mike. Never is an animal or bird of any description put to sleep other than on veterinary advice.

J Graham

Salisbury

Spitfire workers

I AM trying to locate former workers from Salisbury’s secret Spitfire factories to invite them to be our special guests at the forthcoming “We Will Remember Them” concert where we intend to pay a small musical tribute to their efforts, which went largely unnoticed and undervalued by the nation.

Anyone who was involved or knows of anyone who worked in the secret Spitfire factories should get in touch by telephone 01722 710074 or email brian.j.easterbrook@gmail.com.

Brian Easterbrook

Salisbury

My lost brother

I AM appealing for my brother Tommy to please get in touch. We lost contact many years ago.

THOMAS O’BRIEN CLARK (TOMMY). Born June 2, 1945.

Can Tommy or anyone who thinks they know Tommy or has information on his last known whereabouts please get in touch.

Tommy is older brother to George Butterworth Clark and James McIvor Clark and Andrew Clark.

Please contact 07702 261015.

Bernard Clark

Glasgow

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