Pilgrims Way closures

A quick note on today’s significant disruption on Pilgrims Way and Pilgrims Way East. 

The Pilgrims Way closure (between junctions with The Landway and Old Terrys Lodge Road) was for urgent highway works by KCC - patching that needed to be undertaken rapidly. These works are set to go on through to the end of the week.

When these works were under way, BT Openreach closed PWE between Tudor Drive and Row Dow under emergency closure provisions (I’ll come back to the merits or otherwise of that shortly). As is usual in these cases, KCC was not notified until after the road was closed.

My thanks to Simon Reay for highlighting that there were severe problems/ deficiencies with the signage and access for residents on the KCC Pilgrims Way works. I took this up with the Streetworks team and got the following information/ action.

The surface for the patching work in Pilgrims Way will reinstated tomorrow and Wednesday, and from Wednesday the section between The Landway and Cotmans Ash Lane should be reopened. Between Cotmans Ash Lane and Old Terrys Lodge Road will remain closed until Friday. Residents should already have access to their homes, although there may be delays while specific sections of the road are made safe for that access. The Streetworks Inspector will attend the site tomorrow morning to make sure the right signage is in place.

This should not have been as disruptive as it was, and I am sorry for the bad experiences residents had today; hopefully these steps will make the situation a lot more manageable for the remainder of the works. 

In relation to PWE and the BT works, Openreach confirmed at 1:15 that they were complete and the road was being reopened. What this does highlight, though, is the use made of emergency provisions. KCC (and other highway authorities) has been raising this issue for some time. A change in national policy is required. Fortunately, the House of Commons Transport Select Committee is carrying out an inquiry into the issue because it is a major problem across the country. KCC put in a very strong submission to the Inquiry and so we have been invited to give evidence this week.

Finally, all this is separate from the highways improvement works on Pilgrims Way East next week (24-25 March), which as anyone who has driven through there will know, has been notified for some time.

Park Lane works completed

The works and road closure in Park Lane Seal have been completed well ahead of schedule. 

The contractor had completed the works by late on Monday (the first day) and so the road was already open throughout yesterday - which is why there seemed to be no evidence of the closure by late afternoon. 

The original closure was scheduled for up to five days. Given the difficulty of alternative routes when Park Lane is closed, it is good that the contractor was able to allocate extra resource to the works and so minimise the disruption to residents and to the wider road network.

Park Lane Seal closure from Monday

The emergency closure of Park Lane Seal next week was announced yesterday. The closure, between the junctions with Blackhall Lane and Bichet Green Road, will start on Monday for up to five days (17-21 February). This is for essential safety works to trees on unregistered land that Kent Highways is undertaking under its statutory duty of care. Because of the width of the carriageway and the height of the trees the road has to be closed in full rather than a single lane.

The closure is permitted between 8am and 5pm for each day but may on occasion be shorter. The road will reopen when the contractors leave the site each evening. In addition, while the work is scheduled for five days, it is hoped to be less; significant contingency for bad weather, break downs and other delays is built in. 

Any closure on a road like Park Lane will be disruptive, but hopefully scheduling this in half term and delivering the works promptly will minimise this.

Franks Lane repairs

Kent Highways have notified an urgent road closure on Franks Lane, starting tomorrow for 2 days. The road will be closed at the bridge between 9:30 AM and 3 PM each day. 

This is to enable the brick parapet, damaged by vandalism shortly before Christmas, to be rebuilt and matches the timetable I was told at the time. At present, I have not heard that the works will be affected by the current severe weather, but will of course post again if that changes.

Road improvements on the A20

There will be two closures on the A20 in the next couple of weeks to allow for highway improvements.

Next Tuesday (30 July) the road will be closed between 0430 and 0700 for surface dressing works. The closure will be between the junction with the A225 Dartford Road and the speed de-restriction signs outside Charton Manor Farm.

There will then be a 20mph speed limit in that part of the road until the concluding works (on Monday 5 August) to seal the surface dressing. This will use a technique called lockchip - which pretty much does what it says, with a bitumen coating binding in the chippings and reducing loose material on the road. 

The closure on the 5th will be for a relatively short period of time- approximately an hour - at some point between 0930 and 1530. It will, however, require a complete closure of that part of the road for that time. 

There will be similar works (surface dressing on the 30th, sealing on the 5th) elsewhere on the A20, at London Road Wrotham, but the timing will be different from those near Farningham. 

All these works are, of course, subject to weather but hopefully can be carried out in a way that minimises inconvenience to drivers and delivers road surface improvements.

Pilgrims Way closure: South East water works

 For anyone who hasn’t seen it, Pilgrims Way has from this morning been closed by South East Water. This is under emergency provisions to address a burst water main and the closure is until 1700 on Wednesday. It runs from the Childsbridge Lane junction to the Cotmans Ash Lane junction, so diversion routes will use those two roads (which will send more traffic through the village (West End/ High Street).

The physical closure point is either side of Brushwood Cottage, and access for residents will be maintained up to that point.

Upcoming works in Kemsing

West End, Kemsing has a closure (for works by SGN) starting on 25 May. Initial signage seemed to indicate that the closure would be for 4 weeks. This, however, was misleading. The works are scheduled to take 4 weeks, but not the closure. The closure is due to start on Saturday 25th May and finishes at the latest on 3rd June (the road must re-open for the school before 0600hrs).  The remainder of the works are under traffic lights rather than a closure. Our Streetworks team requested that the contractors amend the notice so that it shows the correct dates for the closure period.

The closure is required at the start of the works because this will take place in the relatively narrow stretch of road outside the school. Once the works have reached the point where the road widens out, 2-way lights can be used the closure will be lifted.  The road has to reopen for Monday 3rd June, when the schools resume; if the works requiring closure are not complete, those works will be cancelled and resumed at a future date.

Separately to all this, West End will be closed overnight (from 7PM to 7AM) on the night of 22-23 May for road repairs by Kent Highways. This closure will be between the junctions with Childsbridge Lane and St Edith’s Road.

22 May will also see a daytime closure on Pilgrims Way between the junctions with The Landway and Cotmans Ash Lane, also for Kent Highways works. This will be between 9:30 and 2:30 (again, to avoid an impact on schools traffic) and should take less time than this (hopefully about 4 hours); the works are to fix some large potholes, hence the closure. As I reported previously, Kent Highways carried out a number of works in Pilgrims Way during the recent SGN closure, but this is in a different section of the road.

Pilgrims Way to reopen

I now have an update and Pilgrims Way will be reopened, most likely late tomorrow (Wednesday) evening. In any case, it will be open before 0600 Thursday.

There are currently three sets of excavations by SGN and these will be filled in and left to cure in the course of tomorrow. The reinstatement needs to cure (harden); if traffic goes through the road before this, there could be damage to the road and the need for a yet further closure.

While these works have been going on, KCC has used the closure to carry out three sets of works in Pilgrims Way, addressing kerbing, drain cleansing and potholes at the edge of the carriageway. As a result, the closures that I highlighted originally for the end of this week are now thankfully not needed.

… and works delayed

An amendment to the post below … The start of the Rye Lane works has been delayed as contractors have been diverted by emergency works elsewhere. These works will now start on Monday 13th and so there will be no closures until then. They will either make up the time or the programme overall will be rescheduled - to be confirmed. I will update this when we know more about timing.

Road closures for gas works in Otford

A reminder of the series of road closures in Otford in the coming weeks and months. These are planned closures for gas mains replacement works by SGN in the roads to the south of Pilgrims Way West. Here are the closures and diversion routes: 

Rye Lane, Otford - Phase 1, Pilgrims Way West to Willow Park

06.05.2024 – 24.05.2024

Diversion is via Willow Park, Telston Lane, Pilgrims Way West, London Road, Dunton Green, Station Road, Dunton Green, Rye Lane, Dunton Green and vice versa.

Phase 2,   Rye Lane between Willow Park and Ryecroft.

13.05.2024 – 14.06.2024

Diversion is via Pilgrims Way West, London Road, Dunton Green, Station Road, Dunton Green, Rye Lane, Dunton Green and vice versa.                    

 Phase 3,  Rye Lane between Ryecroft Road and 14 Rye Lane

13.05.2024 – 14.06.2024

Diversion is via Pilgrims Way West, London Road, Dunton Green, Station Road, Dunton Green, Rye Lane, Dunton Green and vice versa.

Broughton Road, Otford (Private Road) Full Length of the Road

06.05.2024 – 31.05.2024

Access Maintained

The Charne, Otford   Junction with Rye Lane

20.05.2024 – 14.06.2024

Access Maintained

Ryecroft Road, Otford (Private Road)  Full Length of the Road 

13.05.2024 – 18.06.2024

Access Maintained

 WILLOW PARK, OTFORD   BETWEEN Rye Lane and O/S 11

06.05.2024 – 24.05.2024

Diversion is via Telston Lane, Pilgrims Way West, Rye Lane and vice versa

Willow Park, Otford         Full Length of the Road

03.06.2024 – 12.07.2024

Diversion is via Telston Lane, Pilgrims Way West, Rye Lane and vice versa.

Flowerfield, Otford     Junction with Willow Park

24.06.2024 – 22.07.2024

Access Maintained

Telston Lane, Otford     Pilgrims Way West to Willow Park

01.07.2024 – 02.08.2024

Access Maintained         

Hale Lane, Otford      Junction with Telston Lane

01.07.2024 – 02.08.2024

Access Maintained

Unacceptable closure in Sevenoaks

Many residents will have been badly affected by today’s closure of St John’s Hill in Sevenoaks.

South East Water have been carrying out works on the road on a permit from Kent Highways for an overnight (2000 – 0500) closure for three nights starting last night. The terms of the permit were that the road would be open during the day, without any traffic management measures. However, this morning the condition of the road was affected by the works and the road closure was left in place (without the local Streetworks team being informed). It is this that has caused today’s severe traffic problems.

This is completely unacceptable; the matter is being escalated by our officers and I will separately be writing and taking the matter up with South East Water. Work is now underway with the aim of being able to open the road for tomorrow morning, although at present I cannot confirm whether this will happen.

Streetworks and road closures

Severe traffic problems after an accident on the M25 - but coming at a time of a lot of road closures, in particular for planned SGN works on the A25 at Sundridge - sparked a lot of debate on local Facebook pages. Given this, a few comments from me on Streetworks and their implications are in order. 

The general position on Streetworks is that the utilities are ‘statutory undertakers’ - they have a right to use the highway when needed for their works and there is little scope to refuse them. Planned works are discussed with KCC/ Kent Highways and they make a major effort to coordinate them … BUT the sheer volume of works (up sharply in recent years across the country), along with efforts to limit disruption in relation to (for example) school travel makes this challenging … AND this is often made much worse by emergency works, which can play havoc with planning. In that case, the utility acts first and informs the highway authority within two hours of starting. About a third of works in Kent are emergencies, and to the best of my knowledge this is similar elsewhere; I hear the same concerns from my counterparts in other counties.

Emergencies explain a lot of the situations when wider areas experience severe disruption, though this wasn’t the case in the incident that sparked the debatereflecting instead a horrible crash on the M25. 

The problem for local authorities, including Kent, is that our legal position and powers are relatively weak. We have, along with other councils, argued for change and we continue to review what we can do within the existing setup; we will be reporting back on that work in the coming months. We are only too aware of how disruptive this is.

Road closures in Swanley Village

 Some updates on road closures in the village. 

Tomorrow (Friday 8 March) there will be the long-delayed closure of Gildenhill Road for Kent Highways to carry out carriageway repairs. The closure will be between 9:30 and 2:30 and will be between Church Road and Clement Street.

There are still some works due to be carried out on Highlands Hill too but they have again been put back because of other works going on. 

A little further out, Highlands Hill will be closed (10-11 April) for Thames Water works on a fire hydrant. This will be a full road closure (apparently the works will be in the middle of the road) and will be continuous (in other words, including overnight). It is, however, during the half term period and is scheduled for that purpose to avoid disruption to the school. 

There will be a separate closure by KCC on Highlands Hill (to replace a street lighting column) on 30 April, but that will only be between 9:30 and 2:30so once more, this will avoid having an impact on school drop-off and pick up. 

More immediately, the works at the bottom of Highlands Hill (a company called Triconnex providing electricity and gas connections to the development on the old nursery site) are going from two way to four way lights as the works have reached the junction with Swanley Lane. (This took place either yesterday or today). The four way lights, which are manually controlled from 7am to 7pm to ease congestion, will be on for a relatively short time as they become two-way again as they move up the road towards Hextable. All the works should be completed by 22 March. 

Pilgrims Way reopened

Pilgrims Way is now open, and the South East Water works are complete. 

The Traffic Management signs are still up, but the company which supplies them will be retrieving them shortly. Our Streetworks team has sought to get the utility to get these works completed ahead of the scheduled three days, and they are now done.

Swanley Village highways works next week

Kent Highways works on potholes on Highlands Hill and on Gildenhall Road, scheduled for last week, were delayed following sickness among the gang who were due to carry them out. They have now been rescheduled for next Monday, 12 February, and so by taking place in half term should avoid causing difficulties for school drop off and pick up.   

The potential problem is that this is also bin collection day. However, SDC have been informed of the closure (they are on the Streetworks mailing list for closures) and the two councils have been in contact. The collections will take place quite early on Monday (please note!), any time from 7 am but certainly out of the area by 9:30, which is when the highways works get under way. Road closures in each of the two roads should not last more than two hours per road, though the formal closure allowed for on Highlands Hill (which will affect the whole road) is between 9:30 and 2:30.

Pilgrims Way closure for South East Water works

Residents have raised the further closure on Pilgrims Way next week, coming shortly after last weekend’s works.

Pilgrims Way will be closed for three days commencing 14 February between the Row Dow junction and Beechy Leas Road. This is for works by South East Water to replace a leaking stop cock at a nearby property. The stop cock is at the edge of the carriageway in a narrow part of the road, so a closure is required for the works.   

 This is therefore a closure undertaken by the utility, for which they have statutory powers. It is not a KCC closure for highways works, though a planned closure of this kind is coordinated with KCC (as opposed to emergency closures, on which KCC is not required to be consulted in advance).

Our Streetworks team are working to reduce the disruption that this will cause by requiring that the road is closed only when work is taking place (this is possible for works of this kind because they do not require, for example, a period to set). At other times, the signage will be pulled in and the road opened, though at present there are no set times for this.

It is very disruptive for residents that this comes so soon after the closure in Pilgrims Way East, and that this comes after a number of other closures. In addition to the approach described above to try to reduce this impact on residents, the works are scheduled for the half term week for the same purpose.

It’s been asked why the two sets of works could not have been carried out at the same time. The reason is that, because they were at, in effect, opposite ends of Pilgrims Way East, residents living between them (including all those in Tudor Drive and Tudor Crescent) would have been unable to get out, except perhaps via Row Dow and routes beyond that, which would in most cases have been a vastly greater diversion than is required by either set of works on their own.

Pilgrims Way East: works at the weekend

Many residents will have seen from the signage up in Pilgrims Way East that there will be a further closure this weekend. The closure will be between the Tudor Drive junction and the A225 Shoreham Road, and will be from 7:30 am on Saturday 3 February until 11:59 pm on Sunday evening. 

The works are to address the deficiencies on the tabletop by the Tudor Drive junction, and the outcome should be something more like the tabletop at the Row Dow junction. This design also requires less time for the curing of the kerbs. 

The recommended diversion route is, as before, via Childsbridge Lane, the A25 and the A225 Sevenoaks Road and Station Road.

Swanley Village road works (continued)

For anyone confused as to what happened on Highlands Hill today, it was not what was originally expected. 

Kent Highways were due to undertake works on potholes in Highlands Hill and go on to work on Gildenhill Road). However, members of the gang due to carry it out were sick, and so neither set of highways works took place. At present I don’t have a new date for these works.

At the same time, UKPN came in to carry out emergency works on some cable repairs (a fault on low voltage cables). These works will continue tomorrow. I understand that Councillor Chris Prestedge has ensured that these take account of school drop off and pick up times.

Swanley Village road works on Monday

For anyone who hasn’t seen it, some details of Monday’s (29 January) road closure in Highlands Hill (for some pothole works by KCC). The road will be closed outside Tudor House.

The permit sets out that the works will start at 9:30 am and finish no later than 2:30 pm, avoiding creating problems for school drop off or pick up. Hopefully the finish should be some time before that; the works in Highlands Hill relate to two potholes and the gang is carrying out several jobs in the local area and so will need to move on to those as quickly as possible. 

In particular, the Highlands Hill works will not be at the same time as Gildenhill Road, which will be closed in full to enable KCC to carry out carriageway repairs. I presume that that closure will be later in the day, but it is probably best avoided throughout Monday if possible.

Pilgrims Way East closure

A reminder - since the signs have been out for a while - that Pilgrims Way East will be closed tomorrow between 0700 and 1500. The closure will be between the Shoreham Road junction and Row Dow. 

This is to enable lining work to be undertaken to improve visibility/ awareness of the speed humps, along with high friction surfacing and resetting of some kerbs. The lining works were intended to be carried out when the hump near Row Dow was repaired in November; however, as a result of wet weather this was not possible. Clearly, these works are also weather dependent, although the forecast suggests that they should be able to go ahead.