Leicester is getting a new Sainsbury store – the biggest in the UK apparently. Naturally it is close to a lot of potential customers, and adjacent to one of the city’s busiest road junctions, which will allow easy access by customers from further afield. Tesco must be trembling in its competitive shoes.
The road junction is being re-built, courtesy of Sainsbury, with new lanes and slip roads to separate shoppers from commuters and from people just trying to drive around the top of Leicester, and the result is long queues in all directions all day, and lots of frustrated drivers. The local MP, Keith Vaz, a big cheese in national politics, steps in and leans on the local councillors, who lean on the Highways Department, who lean on the contractors to do whatever is needed to get the job done quickly.
We promptly get complaints from local residents about very noisy construction work taking place all night, and we ask the contractors what on earth they think they are doing? Stop this night work at once! But, they tell us, it is the City Council who told us to work all night. Of course there is no actual written instruction, and we have to untangle who said what to whom.
In the meantime the local residents complain to Keith Vaz about being kept awake, and he demands that all parties, including my manager (thank goodness I didn’t apply for the post when I recently had the chance…) have a site meeting, during which he asks what on earth the Noise Team is doing allowing road works to take place at night, and what are we doing about it and it really isn’t good enough.
Well, we had already considered serving a Notice, which the contractors would ignore, and we would prosecute, which would get to court after Christmas, and the contractors would have several valid defences, and even if found guilty would be fined considerably less than the penalty payments that would be due to Sainsbury if completion is delayed (and the maximum fine would be the equivalent of about half an hours trading by Sainsbury). There was no point is explaining this to Keith Vaz.
A cessation of noisy work by 11pm was agreed, although, as we already knew, what we consider to be quieter work, and what contractors consider to be quieter work, differ considerably, and, argue the contractors, what can you do when the City Council Traffic Management won’t allow a road closure until 7pm, and then two waggon loads of asphalt arrive late and has to be laid and rolled while still soft even if the 11pm deadline is imminent? But not to worry it will be done by midnight, with just a bit of road sweeping to be done. Have you ever heard one of those road sweepers in action? Noisy jet engines come to mind.
Which is why at 1am yesterday morning I was marching up and down Melton Road in Leicester, taking noise measurements, and “negotiating” with Highways Officers over what operations are going on and why, and it really should move away from houses as soon as possible, especially since earlier local residents had ambushed me earlier to complain at length that nothing is being done to allow them sleep, and someone will die because they will be driving while tired.
By 2.00am everything was as quiet as is reasonable under the circumstances (which most people would still consider to be noisy for the time of night), but there was a road sweeper sitting discretely in a corner, engine running, ready to roll. I decided to go home.
On Monday night it will once again be my turn to put on my high vis jacket and safety boots and leave home at 10pm for 4 hours (or 3 if all goes well) of monitoring.
Technically we live in Oaktree House, but sadly the tree had to go.
We now have a thriving Oakstump at the front of the house.
