Water water everywhere… (but not on Bolton Road West)
I’ll keep it short & sweet and this only directly applies if you live in the vicinity of Bolton Road West in Ramsbottom or have been stuck at the traffic lights there for the past 5 days!
Since Thursday night the water supply has been turned off, for at least three hours, four times. This, I have been told by United Utilities, is due to a broken water mains outside the Masons Arms. Now correct me if I’m wrong but I’ve passed the road works there a number of times during the day & evening and over the weekend and there’s been no workmen trying to fix it. So why oh why United Utilities must you turn off the water on a Monday evening when the majority of people are at home??
“We work around the clock, 365 days a year, to supply around 1.9 billion litres of water every day to approximately 3.2 million homes and businesses before removing it safely and treating it before returning it to the environment.” From http://www.unitedutilities.com/Ourstructure.htm
There has been no warning and no apology from United Utilities (and nothing on their website) although they do admit to having a number of complaints. I know its a very small inconvenience compared to some of the happenings around the world but I bet they’d soon be on my back if I start to cancel my direct debit randomly with no notice at all….
Rant over…..and I await an answer with a dry mouth….
January 25th, 2010 at 11:06 pm
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It took over 35 mins to get off the Nutall Lane estate on Friday morning and nearer to 50 mins today (Monday).
Multiply this by the number of people living on the estate, and then add on the time wasted by everyone else passing through Ramsbottom, and I wonder what is the cost of all these lost hours is to the local economy and businesses. Considerably more than it would have cost to get a few navvies working over the weekend I’m sure!
How much inconvenience – both in terms of traffic chaos and in terms of loss of water supply as mentioned in Jamie’s article – are we expected to put up with before 24 hour working is sanctioned by United Utilities?
Bury Council’s Traffic Department assured me on Friday that the contractors would implement manual control of the traffic lights during busy periods – what a shame the Monday morning rush hour didn’t seem to be covered by this promise.
January 25th, 2010 at 11:07 pm
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Feel free to leave United Utilities some feedback on Twitter @unitedutilities or http://twitter.com/unitedutilities
January 27th, 2010 at 5:59 pm
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There should be a law that prevents workmen leaving a site in the middle of a main road unless its absolutely critical. The impact those works had was ridiculous when you can see there was nobody actually there doing anything.
January 29th, 2010 at 11:32 am
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The problem with Nuttall Lane is NOT the roadworks its the fact that the folk leaving the estate have NO OTHER OPTION. With so many houses down Nuttall lane there should be at least two other ways on or off the estate. This is why I would never buy a house down there!
January 29th, 2010 at 3:56 pm
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I live on Bolton Road West and last week was horrendous – terrible traffic each day, difficult to park (yes even more difficult than normal!) and to top it off, no water! It was only by luck that I went to fetch the bin in from out the back found a man from United Utilities who told me the water would be off on the Saturday. The only alert residents were given was an annoying tanoy announcement at 9.30am saturday morning! What century are we living in again!