CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » General Edinburgh

Myreside Road is a mess

(17 posts)
  • Started 9 years ago by Greenroofer
  • Latest reply from MeepMeep

No tags yet.


  1. Greenroofer
    Member

    Myreside Road (particularly the northbound side) is a mess at the moment. There are lots of tipper trucks taking muck out of the REH site and heading out of Edinburgh along Colinton Road, and the road is covered in mud.

    It's filthy and slidy and busy with scary four-axle rigid body tipper trucks (which we know are bad for cyclists)

    However this morning it also had several rocks on it. Not gravel, but fist-sized rocks, which are a considerable hazard. I've written the following to the MD of Morrison Construction (couldn't find anyone more local). I'll let you know what transpires...

    Dear Mr Gillespie

    Apologies for contacting you directly, but I have been unable to find any more local links that would let me get a message to your team building the new Royal Edinburgh Hospital (REH) campus in Morningside, Edinburgh.

    I'm concerned by the amount of debris that is appearing on Myreside Road and Colinton Road, Edinburgh, and which is clearly falling off the tipper trucks that are leaving the REH site. This morning at 0730 there were considerable quantities of pebbles scattered for some distance along these roads, and their colour matched the colour of the trail of mud leading from the REH site onto Myreside Road. More concerning, though, is that there were several fist-sized rocks on the carriageway too, and again their colour strongly suggests they have come from the REH site.

    I travel on this road every day by bicycle. I can understand that the film of brown mud on the road (and now my bike) is an unavoidable consequence of these construction works. However the stones on the road are a hazard that I think should be avoided by proper sheeting and cleaning of the trucks before they leave the site. The risk they present to me is that I hit one and come off the bike, that I have to swerve to avoid them (potentially putting me in the path of another vehicle) or that one is thrown up at me by a passing car.

    Please will you speak to the team at REH and ask them to take care to prevent rocks falling onto the road. I also think it's important that they take action to ensure that the carriageway is kept clear of the fist-sized rocks I saw today. I don't think occasional passes with a sweeper truck are sufficient for this: they need to monitor the road and immediately remove these bigger rocks.

    I look forward to hearing from you

    Yours sincerely

    Greenroofer

    Posted 9 years ago #
  2. Arellcat
    Moderator

    Myreside Road is a mess even without tipper trucks and road muck. The tarmac is in an absolutely shocking state.

    Plus the floodlight above the door of the site office is far too bright and requires a shade, because it's blinding to oncoming (southbound) traffic.

    Posted 9 years ago #
  3. I were right about that saddle
    Member

    @Greenroofer

    You have stumbled on a crime it seems. Section 149 of the Highways Act has perhaps been breached;

    http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1980/66/section/149

    Posted 9 years ago #
  4. SRD
    Moderator

    I would flag it to the neighbourhood team (south? ) and your councillors.

    Posted 9 years ago #
  5. Fountainbridge
    Member

    Yup it's Edinburgh South team.
    http://www.edinburghnp.org.uk/neighbourhood-partnerships/south-central

    Councilors -
    http://www.edinburgh.gov.uk/councillors/specificWard/9/meadowsmorningside

    Photos speak a thousands words.

    I might head up to Craighouse during the week so will take some snaps.

    All can be found on the Edinburgh Atlas (Thanks SRD) - http://edinburghcouncilmaps.info/atlas/cecatlas.html)

    Posted 9 years ago #
  6. Greenroofer
    Member

    I suspect that they are running a road sweeper up and down the road regularly: the mud that was there on Thursday had gone by Friday. My point is more that fist-sized rocks can't wait for a road sweeper, they need to go immediately.

    If I find any on Monday morning I'll stop and take a picture of them...

    I've sent my email to South Team too now.

    Posted 9 years ago #
  7. Cyclingmollie
    Member

    Well the clue is in the name.

    Posted 9 years ago #
  8. Morningsider
    Member

    IWRATS - We'll have none of your puny English legislation round here - thank you very much! It takes Section 95 of the Roads (Scotland) Act 1984 to deal with our stubborn Scottish mud and debris.

    Posted 9 years ago #
  9. chdot
    Admin

  10. I were right about that saddle
    Member

    @Morningsider

    Cheers, but I'm horrified to note that the legislation does not refer to 'dubs', 'chuckies' or 'steens'.

    Posted 9 years ago #
  11. Greenroofer
    Member

    Just had this from Morrison Construction...

    "Thank you for your e-mail to Ken Gillespie this morning and for bringing this matter to our attention. I am the Project Director responsible for this project and my contact details are noted at the bottom of this e-mail should you need to contact me with any issues relating to this development. Feel free to contact me on my mobile phone if you wish to speak to me directly.
    With regards to your observations from this morning I have spoken to the site team and we have carried out an investigation. It is unclear where this debris has come from as we have procedures in place to prevent this from happening. We believe the debris may have come from the undercarriage or axle of a vehicle visiting our site but picked up elsewhere. Nonetheless, I can confirm the steps we have in place and additional steps that will be taken to ensure that the conditions on the road that you observed from this morning are not repeated.

    • We have a full-time gateman / vehicle marshall on site from approx. 7:00 am until all works on site are complete at the end of the working day. The gateman is stationed just inside the site entrance and is in radio contact with the site supervisors. The gateman has now been tasked with monitoring the condition of the road outside the site to ensure that there is no repeat of the conditions from this morning with slurry or large stones on the carriageway.
    • I can confirm that we have recognised the potential for some contamination of the road outside the site and that we have a road-brush present when we are removing material from site in any significant volume. The road-brush was on site this morning, but as you correctly point out this can only deal with stones or particles up to a certain size.
    • All vehicles leaving site have the correct load covers in place and at this present time the material we are removing from site is top-soil so there should be little potential for any large stones actually coming from the loads of the tippers themselves.
    • We have taken extensive steps to install haul roads within the site between the work area and the site entrance to limit the contamination of vehicle wheels as much as possible, however it is clear that we need to put some further checks in place.
    • All vehicles entering and leaving the site are logged by the gateman and as part of this process the gateman will now be tasked with checking the condition of the vehicle wheels and undercarriage before they depart the site onto the public carriageway. Any large stones still present on any vehicles will be removed prior to the vehicle entering the public highway.
    • If, despite the control measures that we have in place, any large stones do appear on the carriageway they will be removed immediately by the site operatives.

    The haulage activity that is in progress is due to be complete today and after today there will be no significant movement of materials from the site. In fact, the groundworks have been designed in such a way as to reduce the amount of exported material as much as possible.

    You may have noticed that one of the first activities that we undertook on the first week of the project was to remove a section of the stone wall at either side of the site entrance. This was done to improve sightlines for any traffic leaving the site as we were concerned in particular about cycle and pedestrian traffic especially at school pick-up and drop off times.

    The site has also been registered with the Considerate Constructors Scheme and signs with the contact details of the site team were erected this morning at the site boundary.

    We take the health and safety of our staff, operatives and the public extremely seriously so please do not hesitate to contact me directly if you have any further concerns about any works on this project. Please accept my apologies for the conditions that you experienced this morning which I am sure will be satisfactorily addressed by the steps we have in place and additional measures as I have noted above,"

    Posted 9 years ago #
  12. acsimpson
    Member

    It's nice to know they've taken you seriously and recognise the problem the debris has caused.

    Posted 9 years ago #
  13. MeepMeep
    Member

    That seems a pretty fair response, although the cynic in me wonders whether you'd have received the same type of response if a heid-honcho eye hadn't been on the situation?

    Posted 9 years ago #
  14. kaputnik
    Moderator

    although the cynic in me wonders whether you'd have received the same type of response if a heid-honcho eye hadn't been on the situation?

    Or if it had been Crummock* contractors.

    * users of the Broomhouse path have experienced the pain they bring
    ** other crummy contractors are available

    Posted 9 years ago #
  15. Greenroofer
    Member

    @MeepMeep - I agree, it seems a completely reasonable response, for which I have thanked him.

    I didn't go down Myreside Road today, but I do find it interesting that he refers to stuff on there today, when I was referring to Friday. I do gently wonder if he went down there today and found some rocks on the road...

    Posted 9 years ago #
  16. Arellcat
    Moderator

    I didn't go down Myreside Road today

    I did this evening, and can report that the road was clean. The site office was shut so the floodlight was switched off too.

    Posted 9 years ago #
  17. MeepMeep
    Member

    Kaputnik - thanks for joining the dots, had forgotten. Remember some rather hairy moments on inadequate tactiles covered in layers of mud.

    Posted 9 years ago #

RSS feed for this topic

Reply

You must log in to post.


Video embedded using Easy Video Embed plugin