ENGINEERING works that initially blocked a busy Thurrock road without warning, and have now dragged on for several weeks, remain uncompleted - with utilities companies coming up with a plethora of excuses as to why residents, particularly those in wheelchairs or with prams, continue to be inconvenienced.

On April 13 London Road in Stanford-le-Hope was closed to through traffic in both directions, just west of the town's railway crossing, without any warning to motorists or residents.

Thurrock Council were unhappy to hear about the closure, which was enforced by UK Power Networks who were repairing a fault that meant a couple of street lights were not working.

Council highways officers were on the scene soon after the closure after complaints by residents, but said they were unable to do anything as the power company has rights to close roads in 'an emergency'.

Workers on site told Thurrock Nub News the work was being done following pressure exerted by the council, but the council has subsequently denied this.

The road remained closed for the remainder of the day and overnight, even though power workers had left the scene and put barriers around the hole they left.

A sign on the barriers said work would be completed by 20 April.

Local residents actually removed a number of the signs closing the road the following day and that allowed free flow of traffic and later in the afternoon a team from a traffic management company removed the rest of the signage.

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Nevertheless, pedestrians were left having to negotiate the hole in the pavement, causing some of them to have to walk in the busy main road.

And in the interim, nothing appears to have been done.

Ironically the barriers and hole in the pavement are in a key area identified by the council as part of its campaign, funded by hundreds of thousands of pounds from the government, to improve pedestrians' mobility. Aside from the faded painted Covid-19 street markings, the pavement at exactly the point where the barriers are is supposed to be offering 'improved access for walking and cycling.'

On Monday (17 May) Nub News contacted UK Power Networks and asked why the pavement had not been reinstated, as per the promise by the company.

We received this response: "It appears we left the site in late April and left our barriers for a while as there was a manhole belonging to BT that had been damaged before we arrived.

"BT took over the site and I believe they have completed their work too."

We pointed out that this was not correct and suggested as it was UK Power Networks that started the works, they were responsible for resolving the situation.

A spokesperson for UK Power Networks denied this and suggested we contact BT Open Reach.

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Which we did. and sent them a marked map of the location and photographs.

Only to receive this response yesterday (Wednesday, 19 May): "Our operations team has confirmed that this work was completed yesterday – a pic is attached.

"We were granted an emergency permit on 14 May and the area should be properly reinstated now."

The picture that was sent was of a completed piece of work. but was captioned '14-05-202 4.18 London road, The Bonners'.

"We pointed out that the date on the caption conflicted with the statement about completing work 'yesterday' and that the Bonners estate is, in fact, several miles away in Orsett.

'Oops' said the BT team - 'Sorry they got the wrong one'.

This afternoon the BT spokesperson contacted us again to say: "I've asked that someone from our local engineering team inspects the site today to find out why it's not been repaired and take responsibility for it."

That was followed up soon after with the following message: "The latest is that the work has been prevented from being completed due to the fact that it's within 100 yards of a level crossing and our engineers are not permitted to work within a certain proximity of a train line. We've escalated the repairs and hope to have them done very soon."

We will keep readers updated....(and we have also asked Thurrock Council if they will be taking punitive action against the utilities companies for their actions - or lack of action!).