Reader's Photos: The “Handforth hole”

Pete Taylor sent us these photos of the A555 westbound taken this morning (Thursday, 15th February).

The road is currently closed for 17 weeks so essential maintenance works can to be carried out to repair problems with the highway drainage that is causing a depression to form within the carriageway.

Pete said "The only guys working on this little job are those you can see!"

If you would like your photos of Wilmslow and the surrounding area to be considered for publication on wilmslow.co.uk then please email them to [email protected].

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Comments

Here's what readers have had to say so far. Why not add your thoughts below.

Simon Worthington
Thursday 15th February 2018 at 12:53 pm
I presume you had a short wait to get all the workers on their feet, off their phones and together.
Manuel Golding
Friday 16th February 2018 at 4:40 pm
Job completed in 17 weeks, , divided between 2 men =
A) plenty of time on their hands for numerous tea-breaks etc OR
B) Expect protracted time overrun with the "desirous" traffic clogging.
Marc Staples
Monday 19th February 2018 at 9:16 am
There's several dozen pot holes bigger than that around here at the moment !!!!
Gordon Hyslop
Wednesday 21st February 2018 at 6:16 pm
That’s the attenuation tank that they have been building since God was a lad on the A555 extension, due to open sometime in the next decade, and nothing to do with the works to repair the drain under the existing A555
John Harries
Wednesday 21st February 2018 at 7:24 pm
Yea of little faith, repent and be saved.
I can assure you there was a team of 6/7+1(supervisor?) all togged up in hi-viz orange, hard hats/ear defenders and safety specs. PLUS, a welder (at that distance, dressed in what looked like a country jacket and cord trousers...!) at that very spot around 10:30 am today - only the welder appeared to be doing anything resembling 'work'!! Sorry guys, maybe it was just a bad time.
Yet this afternoon a copy of the latest Manchester Weekly News - Wilmslow Edition (dated Thursday 22nd February (so that's 'tomorrows' edition??) popped through the letterbox announcing yet another/further 3 months delay until, wait for it, now LATE SUMMER. These major contractors and corporate/corporation customers seem to have lost 6 months MORE in just two weeks (two tranches of 3 months) - what kind of overpaid idiots are these people - not quite stupid enough since they continue to feed we citizens who pay their inflated salaries - utter garbage.
Mark Russell
Wednesday 21st February 2018 at 9:52 pm
I came throu the roadworks by Amazon at five o clock, two thirds of the workers just stood leaning on barriers. They really are going at a pace to finish that shambles.
Maria Quin
Wednesday 21st February 2018 at 10:26 pm
The pay system is wrong, in my humble opinion. If the contractors were on piece work they’d get a wiggle on! And another reason for so few men “working” is there’s so many bloomin roadworks on the go around here - there’s not enough bodies to even be there to lean on their shovels!! Someone needs a kick up the bum!
Bob Bracegirdle
Thursday 22nd February 2018 at 1:10 am
I think you need to know what the workers do all day not just for the five minutes you are there. You also need to know how the remaining parts of the project are being managed. Then you can offer criticism.
John Harries
Thursday 22nd February 2018 at 10:11 am
@Bob Bracegirdle
That's a very generous comment Bob, and you are right to point out most contributors sound/read like a load of whinging bystanders with nothing better to do!
On the other hand, maybe you should wake up and smell the coffee!
This 'local' major roadworks project of approximately 6 miles dual carriagway, junctions etc. (plus the many and various other minor upheavals) affecting many, many 10's of thousands of people - in order to eventually make their lives better!
Being realistic, the highly paid professionals in charge of these projects and their co-workers cannot cover all the bases - there will be glitches along the way - but it's fair to state that a 'concept to working reality' scheme covering at the very least 15 years (with about 10 core years of detailed planning and actual digging stuff out and laying stuff down) - should manage to plan for 95% of everything short of earthquakes and nuclear conflageration.
As we stand today and going back to initial groundbreaking, the present itteration of SEMMMS is about 3/3.5 years (and please remember, around a couple of miles of operational road and 2.5 major bridgeworks in the Handforth/Woodford area was commissioned 20 years back!!).
I'll be generous and more even handed
- it's much more difficult working around/with existing infrastructure than say, just an otherwise virgin landscape or expanse of farmland, woodlands etc.
- it can be challenging working to an outline brief/central financing that is on/it's off/on again/off, no on etc. with a constantly changing and disappearing target date that defeats even the most optimistic trailblazers amongst us.
There must be examples of similar projects that have been well managed, that come in on/under schedule and on/under budget (perhaps unfair but you can find well managed examples not too far away in places like Germany, Sweden, Switzerland) - this ain't one of them!!

Repeat, we've apparently now lost another six months on the completion date in two, 3 month lumps in JUST TWO WEEKS of February.
So, if you don't mind - horse manure, it is a mismanaged, financially overblown, under resourced, ill lead shambles run by fantacists who take all of us for granted - we deserve and should expect better.