Tackling drainage in Watery Lane

Watery Lane will be closed overnight from tomorrow night (20 March) for up to two nights. The closure will be between 8PM and 5AM, and the closure will be from Chaucer Business Park to the junction of Saxbys Road. This is for KCC to undertake drainage works to address the long-standing problems on the road. 

While there are a number of factors affecting Watery Lane, in particular the interaction between the Network Rail drainage system under the bridge and the Kent Highways drainage system, the works to be undertaken over the next couple of days will focus on the latter. There will be a thorough cleanse of all the gullies, catchpits and manholes and jet all the pipework in the Kent Highways system in that section of the road.

Once these works have been completed, and it is confirmed that they have been effective (our drainage engineer will review the works on completion) the Highways Operations team will be able to carry out the necessary repairs to the road surface; they have been unable to do so as long as the water is running.

Hopefully these works will provide some relief from the problems that have affected this section of road. I will post again when there are further updates on how the works have gone and when the road surface repairs can take place.

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.