HPC meets A14 Delivery Team

Minutes

Meeting – Hilton Parish Council and A14 Delivery Team 06.04.18

Hilton Village Hall 2.00pm

Present:

A14 Delivery Team- Pam Hobson (Stakeholder Director), Dave Forbes (Construction Manager),  Jason Robinson (Senior General Foreman).

Parish Council – Graham Baradell (Councillor) & Jo Perez (Clerk)

  1. A14 traffic through the village.

The A14 delivery team explained the reasons why Hilton has been experiencing heavy volumes of A14 construction traffic and what they are setting into place to stop this issue continuing.

Bad Weather has meant that the haul road has been impassable for some time and therefore vehicles are using main roads. The route A14 construction vehicles should be using is the current A14 and vehicles should not be using the Village unless the A14 is closed.

The wording that had been given to all employees has been ambiguous and not entirely clear. This will change. New wording with warnings will be given to all employees and this will include all suppliers/contractors working on the A14 project.  All A14 workers will have in their vehicles details of the route they should be taking when the haul road is impassable. The new wording will clearly state that there is NO vehicle access through the Village unless the A14 is CLOSED. This means that even if the A14 traffic is slow or a lane blocked they will still have to use the current A14. If the PC has reports of vehicles through the village, and the vehicle registration can be provided so the driver identified, then employees will be removed from the project.

If a vehicle is stopped they must produce the new wording that all employees will be required to carry in their vehicles and we can insist that this is adhered to.

All managers and supplier managers are to be briefed on the new wording. Monitoring will take place over the next two weeks and then as and when required. Current monitoring is being carried out in different areas of the village in order to make sure everyone is abiding to the rules.

The PC Clerk will be informed when the A14 is closed and the Village is likely to see an increase in A14 construction traffic.

It is hoped that by September 2018 that the section of the new A14 between Godmanchester and St Ives will be sufficiently progressed that all construction traffic can then use the new alignment

  1. Verges and road edges.

The Parish Council advised the A14 delivery team that there has be significant damage caused to our roads and verges. In places it is clear that the large A14 construction vehicles have mounted verges and caused damage. There has also been an increase in pot holes and exposed pavement/road at the road edges. The A14 delivery team expressed that as a gesture of goodwill that they will make repairs to the verges where necessary. This will hopefully happen early autumn once there is uninterrupted access through the works and there is no longer a possibility of A14 construction traffic using the Village.

  1. NMU Path on the B1040 Bridge.

The Parish Council has requested that the NMU Path on the B1040 Bridge be to the east side. This would hopefully make the possibility of the Parish Council securing a Footpath/cyclepath out of the Village a lot easier.

Unfortunately the NMU has already been planned for the west side of the B1040 and utility companies have already laid cables to the west. Therefore it is too late to make any changes as this would be too costly and delay the opening of the bridge and potentially the new A14.

This is very disappointing news as the PC has been asking for this information since at least November of last year and even recently the clerk was advised that this “ could be discussed at this meeting and we can go from there”,  this implied that nothing was set in stone.  At the meeting it was advised that it would not have been possible to change the bridge design back in November, but this was not made known to us.

The PC has asked for further information on the NMU planned on the Hilton Road.

  1. 2m bund between the road and Village.

Bunds will be in place 1-2years ahead of the opening of the new A14. Some bunds have already been formed and planting will take place between September 2018- March 2019. The plants will be smaller plants to give them a better chance of establishing themselves and surviving.

  1. General progress

It is hoped that the Bridge on the B1040 will be open sometime in June 2018. Hilton Road Bridge should not be too far behind. There are no lights on either of the Bridges.