Plans to close the A34 Alderley Edge Bypass to enable Cheshire East Highways to cut the grass on the banks have been reviewed.
Initially Cheshire East Council were intending to close the road on both Thursday 4th and Friday 5th July, between the hours of 9:30am and 3.30pm.
However, we have been informed today that the road will now only be closed on Friday, 5th July, for five hours.
The three mile bypass will be closed from 10am until 3pm.
I contacted Cheshire East Council (CEC) to enquire why the road was being closed, when they had managed to cut the grass on the banks of the A34 Wilmslow bypass this morning by closing just one lane.
I spoke with Simon Davies, from Cheshire East Highways, who described the closure of the bypass as 'quite a complex issue'.
Since the bypass has been built it has been maintained by the contractor Birse and in recent years the grass has been cut by their contractors, and was done on a regular basis, but that maintenance period has now ended and the responsibility has been handed back to CEC.
Simon Davies explained "In rural areas, such as the bypass, we now only cut the grass once a year - which is quite different from how many times it has been cut in previous years.
"In the past Cheshire East cut rural areas twice or three times but the requirement this year is only once. This is due to pressures on budgets but also the increased interest in maintaining the wildlife habitat - there is a bit of a trend to cut the grass less. This presented us with a problem, if we had cut it too early it would have got too long by next year, so we held off and it is now very long."
He added "We have cut the A34 (Wilmslow bypass), A555 and other similar roads and have experienced problems with lots of grass cuttings going on the road, which we are nervous of happening here.
"We will be using a large tractor with cutters on extended arms at the back and we have a big mechanical sweeper to make sure we pick up all the cuttings. We could manage with two sets of stop and go boards but this would slow things down quite considerably.
"It is also a very simple diversion route so with all things combined we made the decision to shut the road."
Traffic will be diverted through the village, via Congleton Road, London Road and Wilmslow Road.
Simon Davies added "We are going to make the most of shutting the the road so we will also empty the gullies, litter pick and repair a bit of the footpath which was damaged by a car fire.
"We are getting extra resources to limit it to one day and we are trying to do everything we can to minimise the impact on the village.
"If there are any particular difficulties that closing the road causes for particular businesses then if these can be highlighted to Cheshire East then they can be included in the considerations for next year."
Access for pedestrians and emergency vehicles will be maintained.
Comments
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So, why was this subject not considered when they constructed the By-Pass in the first place ?
As mentioned earlier, they don't close the M6 to cut the grass, so why does this happen here ?