Search results for 'may Gurney'

May Gurney – if at first you don’t succeed….

15 Jan

Taking the advice of the old saying which goes “if at first you don’t succeed then try, try and try again” I have again confiscated some of May Gurney’s signs  after finding them illegally blocking the pavement (signage must always leave 1 meter clear for pedestrians). As always when I remove their signs like this I email marketing@maygurney.co.uk and tweet using the twitter handle (@maygurney) and invite them to come and collect them.

We are making slow progress though. There was no obvious effect to my complaint in October 2010 – we exchanged friendly emails but nothing changed, and then when I confiscated two illegally positioned signs a year later I didn’t even get any response at all beyond the standard automated email acknowledgement. Only after I had removed a 2nd set of dangerously positioned signs did I finally get an email and phone response promising action. They also arranged to collect the four signs that I had in storage for them by that time.

Unfortunately they are still blocking pavements so we need to keep going a little longer! In this latest incident notice that:

  • the road works themselves are almost entirely on private property and hardly intrude onto the pavement, let along onto the carriageway which is not affected at all (so there is no logic to warning motorists of a narrowing road)
  • the signs are causing far more inconvenience to pedestrians than the road works themselves (even before one of the collapsed).
  • oh yes, and notice that the other pavement is blocked as usual by a car, so that pavement is not easy to use either.

Two signs ilegally obstructing the pavement

Tags: , , , ,

May Gurney again

9 Oct

May Gurney are continuing to leave signs blocking the pavement with less that the legal minimum of 1 meter for pedestrians. In the past I have emailed the company to complain and have also occasional repositioned them to legal positions.

Section D1.1.2 of chapter 8 of the Traffic Signs Manual states that ‘ Road works on or near a carriageway, cycleway or footway might impair the safety and free movement of vehicles, cyclists and pedestrians (particularly those with mobility and visual impairments)‘. Section D4.4.1 says that  ‘in no circumstances must the width of the footway be reduced to less than 1m, preferably not less than 1.5m’.

I spotted some more signs yesterday right across a pavement close to my home used by disabled people and parents with young children. Neither of these signs left 1 meter clear and they were causing more inconvenience  that the road works themselves. I contacted the Water Board for whom they were working and asked them to get May Gurney to move them within 24 hours. When May Gurney didn’t do this I removed them into safe storage to avoid injury to pedestrians and emailed the company to request that they phone me to arrange for their collection.

Illegal road works signage (again)

Another illegal (and useless) sign

Update

No response to my email after 48 hours. I am now sending out a tweet that includes @maygurney to see if that gets a response.

Tags: , ,

#mayguerney – ignorance, or simply contempt for pedestrians?

23 Feb

May Gurney have excelled themselves this time. It is not uncommon for them to obstruct pavements illegally, but they normally leave more than the 640mm they did yesterday to the right of the first sign in this picture, followed by 950mm to the left of a second one. Neat to make pedestrians weave one way and then the other. Why? did they not think, or don’t they actually care? Needless to say, both of these leave less than the mandatory 1m and advisory 1.5m of pedestrians.

Image

I have emailed the company, explaining that I have removed the first sign into storage for health and safety reasons. Given how ineffective emails have been in the past, I have also suggested that they refund my costs, which I have calculated at £5 for the email and £5 per week, or part thereof for storage. I have reminded them that they also own me £1 for a phone call made to Anglian Water when they blocked another nearby pavement some time back. I have offered to give the money to Living Streets, and suggested that they can make a cheque out to that organisation if they prefer.

No idea if this will wake them up, but emails, complaints and blog-posts alone have achieved absolutely nothing over the past 2 years.

Update

Fyi, I have received no reply at all to my email telling them about their sign being in storage. The sign continues to rot beside my garage. By my calculations storage costs after 6 months stand at £100 with £6 administration totalling £106.00.

I think I will write to them one more time and then reuse/recycle the sign if they apparently have no further use for it!

 

Tags: , ,

Beware, lobbying ahead

7 Nov

A new lobbying group “The Road Ahead Group” is apparently being set up by various business with interests in freight, and in building and operating roads. They will be lobbying Whitehall but according to the press aim to maintain a low public PR profile. True to their word, they appear to currently have no web presence but we do know that it has been set up by Brian Wadsworth who moved to a lobbying firm after a stint as Director of Strategic Roads, Planning and National Networks’ at the Department for Transport. Other supporters include Midland Expressways (who operate the M6 Toll road), my friends May Gurney and other infrastructure companies. Rather quaintly, one of their lobbying aims is to protect part of the Vehicle Excise Duty revenue for road building. (err, didn’t Winston Churchill get rid of that in 1937?)

In an apparently unconnected announcement in the past 24 hours the RAC Foundation and ARUP have claimed that the UK needs to spend £12.8bn building new roads; they talk about an infrastructure ‘shortfall’, outline 100 ‘urgently needed’ projects and say that current situation is ‘worrying’ and ‘concerning’. One thing they are not concerned about it carbon emission and climate change – the word carbon does not appear and the word ‘climate’ only gets mention in relation to the financial climate. They do however like toll rolls and Public Private Partnerships and by way of good examples they draw attention to the fact that Canada, Spain and the USA have built a lot of roads recently.

Curiously, given that neither Arup nor the RAC Foundation are publicly connected with ‘The Road Ahead Group’, but their report does happen to recommend that road building should be supported by “giving the sector a dedicated revenue stream, based on retained user charges and/or hypothecation of some motoring taxes (e.g. VED).” Incidentally, the RAC Foundation/Arup report is written by a former civil servant at the DfT, where ‘he sponsored the Department’s roles in major projects and transactions’. The doors are clearly still revolving – you can read about bit about revolving doors and lobbying in the UK on Wikipedia.

To sign off, here is an image from the RAC Foundation/Arup report. They don’t mention it by name, but it is this monsterous interchange in Los Angeles – an impressive bit of engineering for sure, but possibly not something any of us will want in our back yard, and indeed LA is going off roads and getting pretty excited about public transit.

Judge Harry Pregerson Interchange (Los Angeles)

Tags: , , , ,

Ipswich Borough Council blocking pavements with roadworks signage

17 Oct

Ipswich Borough Council staff are disrupting pedestrians near to road works by leaving signs on pavement with only 800mm clearance (which is about the width of an external door to a house and less than the legally required 1 meter for road works signs). Only when pressed did they confirm that they knew the law about 1 meter clearance. Their justification was that they were concerned about the risk to motorists if the signs were further into the road – no concern at all that I heard about the risk to pedestrians and old people from leaving them on the pavement. I have reported this on fixmystreet which the council monitors and responds to.

Here are some photos of the signs in question. The good news is that there is a 100% clear rule that they are breaking in this case. No excuses about it being a ‘necessary obstruction’ or a ‘willful obstruction’. It is however a very clear example of the contempt that pedestrians are treated with and is, I am sure, repeated across the country. Incidentally I am still waiting for May Gurney to ask for their signs backwhich they left blocking a pavement over a week ago!

Only 800mm for pedestrians

Only 800mm for pedestrians

Making the pavement even narrower (less than the legal 1 meter as well)

Making the pavement even narrower (less than the legal 1 meter as well)

Blocking the pavement illegally and useless due to parked car!

Blocking the pavement illegally and useless due to parked car!

Damaged sign, no sandbag, on pavment across dropped kerb by local shop

Vehicle sign blocks access to pedestrian walkway for disabled

Update

The following day all consideration of pedestrians had disappeared.

No consideration for pedestrians at all the next day

Tags: , , , ,

Delivering essential services…

27 Oct

May Gurney have been mending a leaking water main on Newbury Road in Ipswich today which is exactly what they say they do on their website: ‘Delivering the Essential Services for Everyday Life’. Who can complain about that? See if you can spot the problem. Answers below:

Not so clever

In the first picture notice: a) A nice helpful red ‘pedestrians this way’ sign showing people how to access the nice protected walkway along the road. Nothing wrong there and all super safe. However… notice b) a triangular ‘road works’ sign on the pavement blocking the pavement before one gets to the nice pedestrian sign. Then notice c) That this is a dead end road – it would be impossible for anyone in a car to read the nice helpful road works warning sign. Now notice d) That there are two more signs blocking the pavement on the other side of the road. Personally I think a pavement is an essential service and I am sure they do too really.

When I first went past the workmen were there. I asked them to move the signs but they said they couldn’t. I returned later when they had left and the signs were still in the same position. A bit later I noticed that they had all been packed away neatly.

Excess signage seem to have gone

The excess signs are now safely stowed where they can cause no harm

Here is a view from the other direction

Now you see them

Now you don’t!

This isn’t the only problem we have had on Newbury road. Check out this earlier post about the same issue and the one about the vans parked on the pavement on the same road. I have also blogged about the new rules about not blocking dropped kerbs Of course those regulations don’t apply to ‘safety’ signage? Funny old world.

Is it really the law that they must block the pavement even when it is patently daft? I am going to email them now with a link to this blog and ask them. I will let you know what they say.

Update

May Gurney have just written a very helpful reply which confirms that these companies appear to be required to lay out signage in this way as covered in my more recent post. I will take a look at the legislation mentioned in their response (below) and do anyone post in due course. Good on May Gurney for responding to us!

Here is what they say:

“Thank you for your recent communication regarding the use and positioning of temporary road signs.

“Firstly, may I assure you that the safety of both our workforce and that of other highway users is of paramount importance in any work that May Gurney carry out.

“To address your question regarding the legislation covering these type of works, we are bound by Section 65 of the New Roads and Street Works Act 1991 and Section 174 of the Highways Act 1980.

“I note from your blog that you are aware that positioning of the signs is dictated by reference to the Safety at Street Works and Road Works manual.

Update 2

I subsequent discovered that on no account should road works signage be positioned in such a way as to reduce the width of the footway to less than 1 meter (preferably not less that 1.5 meters). I didn’t measure the width remaining for these signs but it looks less than 1 meter to me.