People have complained about the first day of five weeks of roadworks across Dereham.
Monday marked the start of traffic disruption due to pavement reconstruction works on the north side of Yaxham Road between Greens and Station roads.
The southbound lane of Yaxham Road from Tavern Lane to the mini-roundabout at the junction with Station Road are closed - with signs around the town warning of delays and diversions.
There are lots of roadworks in Dereham for the next four weeks. Several children were late this morning. Please leave additional time for your journey to school to ensure the children arrive on time and don’t miss any learning. Thankyou.
— @ToftwoodFederation ❤️ (@ToftwoodFedera1) March 20, 2023
To make matters worse, a small sinkhole opened up on Crown Road on Monday morning, which police have coned off.
One Facebook user posted: “Who dreams up these routes? Went to Morrisons this morning to get petrol, came out and turned right to Lynn Hill to find can’t go left so turning right to head towards the library nearly got wiped out by a car coming from the Tavern direction.”
Commercial Road is also closed for the week for utility repair and maintenance works, as another people added: “This is now ridiculous, surely something can be done to stop this madness.”
A spokesperson for Norfolk County Council said: “While these works are necessary, as the existing footway has reached the end of its serviceable life and requires reconstruction, we do regret the unavoidable impact on residents and highways users in the area.
"The measures employed have been reviewed by our Streetworks team with regard to safety, impact on the network and coordination with other works within the area. Our team onsite are working hard to keep delays to the public to a minimum and will review the traffic management should any safety issues arise.
"We hope to complete these works in a timely manner and allow traffic to return to it’s usual routes as swiftly as possible.”
Paul Sandford, the landlord of the Railway Tavern on Yaxham Road, was at the pub early on Monday to do some admin work. He was already fearful of the impact the works would have - which has been heightened given what he described as ‘gridlock’ across Dereham.
“One customer told me as he was leaving, ‘see you in four weeks’, which is not good,” he said.“I cannot lie, I’m very concerned about the next few weeks, we are starting a home delivery for the fish and chips tomorrow to make sure people can still get their food.”
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