Traffic Management explain on their website that they offer ‘a safer method of Traffic Management’ – curious, given that they have almost completely blocked a pavement in Ipswich with motorist diversion signs forcing pedestrians into the road. These signs leave about 300mm of width of the pavement, which is less than half that of a typical 2′ 6″ internal doorway in a house and far less than the absolute minimum of 1 meter required by law. I phoned their emergence number this morning (which was helpfully printed on the back of one of their signs) and asked them to move them in the next few hours. Lets see what happens. (see below for update – very impressive response time and attitude – thank you).
400mm for pedestrians
A convenient place to leave a sign
Update
OK, so they had an ’emergency phone number’, they answered it promptly, and then moved the signs within 2 hours (including driving all the way from Diss)! I met the guy on-site who was very helpful and supportive. We also had a useful discussion about some of design defects of current road works signs which will be the subject of another post soon. Thank you Mervyn Lambert. Needless to say the purpose of calling them out was to remind them in a very clear way that they need to get this sort of thing right in future, so lets just hope they get the message and have a word with the guy who plonked the sign down so thoughtlessly across the pavement in the first place costing the company 3 hours in staff time and 50 miles in a company van.
Pedestrian Liberation 
Kudos to Mervyn Lambert. It’s a pity it was put out incorrectly in the first place but it’s nice to see that they responded both quickly and correctly. May Gurney, please note.
Unfortunately pedestrians move signs, car owners move signs so they can park there car, or even throw them over people’s gardens, which make traffic management companies look bad. So all I can say is it’s not always the company that puts signs in the middle of paths it’s normally down to some inconsiderate resident or kids messing about