Why is Tollbar work taking so long?

In the first half of the 19th century, the Dutch built a mountain road in the East Indies. It was 600 miles long and took 12 months to complete.

After the Japanese earthquake and tsunami, their Government completely rebuilt tens of miles of totally destroyed six lane motorway in about six months.

Modifications to the Tollbar Island, and short stretches of the approach roads, are scheduled to take three years! This results in endless delays to the great detriment of drivers’ sanity and our local economy. Presumably some highly-paid expert or official somewhere thinks this is reasonable.

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This is exacerbated by hopeless traffic management. Recently, I was in a two mile tailback to Tollbar, on the westbound A45. On reaching the island, I discovered that the tailback on the southbound A46 was six cars. This kind of thing, together with endless lane closures with no work going on, ie no “workforce to protect” is enough to induce red mist before the eyes of the calmest driver.

I can only assume that the contractors, the supervising agencies, the Highways Agency and the Transport Minister are all being paid by the hour, not for work actually completed.

Alan Morrison, via email

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