Reader's Photo: Alderley Road flooding (again)

Ian, surely it was obvious that the vast majority of the budget on that project needed to be spent on the mixed pedestrian cycle lane that the odd person uses…. Although no bikes!
The good news is that, as I passed today, at a similar time there was barely a puddle on the pedestrian/cycle lane.
So £1million we’ll spent last year by Craig Brown and co and one day… one day, maybe they will address the priorities that truly affect us all?!

As somebody who chooses to walk to work and back each day from Alderley to Wilmslow I really don't see any benefit from the £1m changes on this road (apart from the new crossing outside the Kings Arms).
This continual flooding issue should have been sorted as part of the same project. I can't count the amount of times I have had to walk through the middle of the road, holding back the traffic behind me just to make sure I don't turn up to work like a drowned rat!
When the weather is bad, and therefore flooding inevitable I've simply given up now. I'll either drive or get the train which is exactly what the investment was there to discourage.
The road is still full of potholes, the pavement (on the Royal London side) is awful and the cycle lane is unusable due to the amount of debris.
A phenomenal waste of public fund on this project!
Maybe they would have been better blowing it on a council xmas party :-)

I hope that, given the considerable time and expense spent on the remedial drainage work at that location earlier this year, that CE Council will take a long hard look at the way in which contracts are awarded.

There is a real sense that they are squandering our money and asking for more.

I believe Craig Browne has explained many times that it wasn’t council money that was spent on the foot and cycle path.

It was money which couldn’t be spent on other initiatives.

That doesn’t make things better but it does mean that criticising the council for wasting money isn’t valid.

Hi Stephen,

The walkway / cycle path work was done completely separately to the drainage work at Whitehall Brook.

I know this because I commented to Craig at the time asking why the two sets of work and the resulting disruption couldn't have been consolidated.

I understand that the walkway / cycle path work was financed out of Section 106 money, designed to ameliorate the impact of development work in an area. To all intents and purposes it is public money and it's allocation falls to the Council.

My criticism is about the quality of work carried out by Council appointed contractors and I believe it stands.

Hi Alan,

Just to correct a slight misunderstanding or misinterpretation here; the £950,000 expended on the Wilmslow Cycle Way was a grant from the Dept for Transport, secured by the Cheshire & Warrington Local Enterprise Partnership and passported to Cheshire East Council. The grant was part of the government's Active Travel Fund and the monies had to be spent in line with the terms and conditions of the grant, namely to implement the scheme and to encourage cycling and walking within the town.

No part of the grant either could be or was used to carry out drainage improvements; however, the Council did use the closure of Alderley Road to carry out some drainage improvements at the same time. For example, drainage kerbs were installed along this section of highway, which are designed to assist rainwater egress from the road surface and into Whitehall Brook below; however, this work was only intended as a partial solution, with Phase II to be delivered as part of the proposed re-development of the Royal London site.

The Royal London site is of course, private land and not part of the public highway. There is a proposal, again as part of the proposed redevelopment of that site, for the southbound approach to the Whitehall Bridge roundabout to be widened to three lanes and there are further plans to improve the drainage of the land as part of that development. Currently, the land remains under private ownership, but the plans can be found using the following link: https://doc.cheshireeast.gov.uk/NorthgatePublicDocs/08118069.pdf

Kind regards,
Craig

Hi Craig,

Thanks for your response which caused me to look again at my comment on your FB feed concerning the work carried out on Alderley Road.

You are (of course) quite correct, it wasn't drainage work that caused the road to be closed again so shortly after the lengthy cycle-way work, it was the re-lining and re-marking work that caused the further disruption at that time.

You did acknowledge at the time that it would have been sensible to do both jobs at the same time.

Please accept my apologies for the mistake - there is clearly nothing wrong with the drainage.