Dear Editor,

THIS is the second serious accident on Gilden Way during the last two months. Given the dangerous state of the Gilden Way roadworks, local people are not surprised.

The Gilden Way roadworks have major safety issues. 

1 .Two lanes of traffic are forced to pass each other on a lane that’s just a one and half lanes wide, it’s a death trap that should be traffic light controlled.

2. The temporary traffic lights on Gilden Way constantly break down.

3.  When the traffic lights at the junction of Sheering Road and Gilden Way broke down a few nights ago – changing from red to green and back to red in just a few seconds –  a long line of bumper to bumper traffic from Gilden Way was forced to drive against the red traffic light, anticlockwise around the Churchgate Street roundabout, risking head on collisions with oncoming traffic from the Mark Hall direction.

4.  When the traffic lights on Gilden Way failed and stuck on red a few weeks ago, my car was among a long line of bumper to bumper traffic that was trapped inside a metal barrier that blocked the lane beside it and cones blocking a right turn into Mulberry Green. The barriers and cones stopped us doing U turns, so we’d no where to go.  It was only when vehicles at the failed traffic lights began doing U turns over the top of the cones that cars could gradually move to a section where we could do U turns. Then a police car arrived and the officer sat watching for 10 mins before doing nothing to help and driving off.

5.  The road work contractors claim that the traffic lights are constantly [wo]’manned’, but that’s untrue. When the temporary traffic lights fail, as they so often do, no one answers the emergency number, no one manually directs traffic.

6. The traffic cones and metal barriers used to block off lanes of Gilden Way are so badly aligned, that these are a danger in themselves.

7. Local people have been told to avoid Gilden Way and instead drive across Foster Street and Harlow Common to Potter Street. But that unlit, narrow, winding country road, riddled with over 60 six inch deep pot holes – some 4′ long – on one lane alone, is too dangerous to drive on at night. Large sections of that road are crumbling away. 

8.  The road across to the common also floods and floodwaters block the road at times.

Regards

Colleen Morrison