Happy New Year!

I hope you all had a peaceful and relaxing Christmas and New Year and our temporary reinstatement over the period worked well.

 We started back on Monday 6 January and are working to complete the final couple of manhole chambers on the diversion pipeline. The temporary tarmac and road plates have been removed from the road and footpath at the entrance of the cul-de-sac and we plan to complete the permanent reinstatement towards the back end of next week.

We’ll need to re-establish two way temporary traffic lights during working hours to complete the permanent reinstatement. There may be times when we need to hold all traffic for short periods while we switch over lanes etc, however, in the case of urgent access and egress, we can and will stop work while we get vehicles through the working area.

 Starting next week, we’ll also make a start on the removal of our temporary compound and will complete the soft landscaping (verge , planting etc) the following week.

 Regards

Good afternoon all,

Ahead of our Christmas shut down today, we have completed permanent highway reinstatement on The Lane and temporary reinstatement into the cul-de-sac, to allow the removal of the temporary traffic light controls and re-establish two-way traffic in and out of Rookery Gardens.

We will be returning to site on Monday 6 January 2020 to complete final reinstatement work within the entrance of Rookery Gardens, a small section of work within the private driveway and finally, removal of our temporary cabins and associated reinstatement.  However, this will not require further traffic management.

We would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your patience and understanding while we have been carrying out our work and would like to wish you a peaceful Christmas and New Year.

All the best for 2020

Sarah

Good afternoon, as you will see our work is progressing well, even with the poor weather conditions we have experienced over the last couple of weeks.

The teams are continuing to push on, team one is currently working within the restrictions of a private garden whilst constructing a manhole and piping out through the drive to manhole 2 which is located on the road outside the private property. Our other team will continue to install pipe along The Lane and into Rookery Gardens and has approx. 17 meters left to go, however, this will be tricky as we come across into the estate as we’ll need to temporarily put traffic on a short section of stoned up trench and verge to get around our work. Please bear with us as we complete this section and please adhere to the temporary traffic light signals.

The pipe laying should be complete towards the back end of this week, to allow the teams to prepare for temporary / permanent reinstatement work.

The reinstatement contractors are lined up to start the tarmac reinstatements on Monday 16th December starting on The Lane and working their way around into Rookery Gardens, however, we may run out of time to complete all reinstatement before the Christmas shut down and may need to return in the New Year to complete reinstatement work.

We would like to thank you for you continued patience and understanding during these works.

As always, any questions please don’t hesitate to ask.

Thanks

Sarahjayne

Good afternoon,

Hope you are well and looking forward to the weekend. We have laid 56% of the pipe work so far. There are two teams working on the project and since my last update, The first team have completed of the construction manhole 2 (picture below) and are laying pipe towards manhole 3 as team 2 are progressing from manhole 4 to manhole 3.

After several concerns raised about the Traffic Management, Premier have been back out last week and confirmed the equipment is operating as it should be. If you suspect there is a problem with the lights, please flag this to a member of the team, or alternatively if it’s out of hours please ring Premier Traffic Management on 0151 4941199.

The footpath along The Lane outside School Cottages is fully closed which also prevents access to the post box and notice board. Royal Mail have made sure all post has been removed prior to us blocking it off.

We also have a road sweeper coming along to site regularly to keep on top of the muck that is being tracked backward and forwards by the machinery.

As always if you have any questions please don’t hesitate to contact me.

Enjoy your weekend!

Sarah

Good afternoon, we have now finished the construction of manholes 5 and 4a on The Lane. Premier Traffic Management have been on site today and modified the TM to allow for the section of road outside School Cottages to be reopened. As you will see from the first picture below the TM has moved further along. Can we please emphasise the importance of abiding by the traffic signals, these are there for your safety. If you suspect thy are not working, please flag this to a member of the team, or alternatively if it’s out of hours please ring Premier Traffic Management on 0151 4941199.

The new temporary road, which has ensured we maintain vehicular access at all times is now complete. When we designed the road, we looked at the working widths for the access and looked at how to protect the services that run through the footpath including telephone cables, electric cables and gas supplies. We have plated over those to protect from vehicular loading and tarmac secures it and provides a running surface for traffic. Once the work is complete, we will remove the tarmac and plate's then resurface the area.

The footpath along The Lane outside School cottages is being temporarily relocated to the opposite side of the road. Whilst access to the post box and notice board are still accessible this will change towards the end of next week/beginning of the following week. I will update you next week to confirm when these will become inaccessible.

Enjoy your weekend!

Good afternoon you should have received a letter last weekend giving you an update on the project. Headlines from that are we have experienced delays due heavy rainfall and the culvert not been in the marked position as on the plans. Although the delays have impacted the progress, we are confident the time can be made up over the coming weeks and still envisage completing the major drainage work before Christmas.

Enabling work at the entrance to Rookery Gardens was scheduled to start yesterday, however we applied the 3-way traffic management at Rookery Gardens today to start the enabling work. This is necessary to ensure that we can maintain vehicular access to the cul-de-sac.

During working hours, the footpath at the entrance of Rookery Gardens will be temporarily closed. Outside of working hours, we will reduce our working area and re-establish pedestrian access around our work and on to The Lane. We have discussed with you, alternative pedestrian access on and off the estate, we have agreed with Durham County Council to introduce temporary advisory signs either side of the desigated crossing on Middridge Road.

Click here to view a  copy of the letter a copy has also been put in the community notice board on The Lane.

We would like to thank you for your patience and as ever if you have any questions please don’t hesitate to comment below or use the ‘Contact us’ at the top of this page.

Sarahjayne

MMB Customer Liaison.

Good afternoon all,

The weather looks like an improvement from last weekend’s torrential rain, thankfully.

I just wanted to pop a quick note on here about the traffic management we have in place on The Lane. I understand Traffic lights can be a pain if you're late for work or stuck in traffic, but they are designed to increase safety by regulating the flow of traffic. It been observed several times by members of our team, people jumping the lights rather than waiting for them to turn green.

It doesn’t take long for these to quickly swap over from red to green, please be patient.

I will update the portal regularly with updates, please don't hesitate to contact me using the ‘Contact us’ at the top of the page or leave a comment below.

Thanks

Sarah

Good afternoon, what a week it has been with the weather! I have a picture below capturing the flooding earlier in the week. What a shock it was to see the flooding first-hand.

Fortunately, this hasn’t hampered with our progress this week and we are still on track to start the open cut work next week along Rookery Gardens (The Lane) near School Cottages.

As you will have noticed by now, we have 2-way traffic management on The Lane which started Wednesday this week. This has enabled us to carry out further investigation work to determine the exact position of a gas main.

This coming Monday we will start with the open cut work at Rookery Gardens from outside School Cottages up towards the entrance to the cul-de-sac. The traffic management arrangement currently in place will remain 2 way until week commencing 21st October however, it will gradually, as the pipe laying progresses, move away from outside School Cottages.  

As always, any questions please don’t hesitate to ask, we would also like to thank you for you continued patience and understanding during these works

Thanks

Sarah

Good afternoon All, 

as you are aware our team are coming to Rookery Gardens on Monday to start establishing our site compound and make a start on the work, which is programmed to run until 20th December 19.

Andrew Martin is the Site Agent on behalf of Bentleys who will be managing the day to day site activities and Scott Povey the Engineer working alongside Andrew. Then there’s me, Sarah Jayne Vickers the Customer Liaison Officer at Rookery Gardens, your go to person should you have any questions or concerns. I have included pictures of us below for your info.

I would like to reassure everyone that the road to Rookery Gardens will not be closed. I understand that a sign erected at the entrance, states ‘Road Closed from the Monday 30th’ will have caused some alarm. The sign should be referring to the footpath closure which is not expected to start until week commencing 21st October.

The foot path closure is to allow enough room to maintain vehicular access to your property. For the duration of the works, the alternative pedestrian access to Rookery Gardens will be via the existing designated crossing on Middridge Road. The footpath will remain open for the first few weeks of our arrival and I will keep you updated ahead of the footpath closure.

I’ll be on site Monday morning, and I’m happy to pop along for a chat if you have any questions just pop me an email over or comment below and I can arrange a suitable time.

Thanks

Sarah Jayne Vickers

MMB Customer Liaison Officer

Good morning All, I would like to thank all of you for your patience and understanding over the last couple of months.

On Wednesday we had Flo, Northumbrian Water's customer vehicle at the end of Rookery Gardens and had the pleasure of seeing some old and new faces. We shared our new plans and the project headlines with you, please click Here to view the plan.

Our construction start date is the 30th October 2019 with construction completion on 19th December 2019.

We very much look forward to working with your community to deliver this project with minimal impact as possible.

If you didn't get chance to pop along we are more than happy to arrange a suitable time to come and discuss with you. Any question please comment below or alternatively use the contact us option at the top of the page.

Thanks

Sarah Vickers 

MMB Customer Liaison Officer.