On Monday 28th July Philip held a meeting with representatives from Northern Gas to discuss the ongoing work on Otley Road. Philip gave many alternative suggestions about how to minimise the amount of time taken to complete the work on Otley Road. Here you will see a copy of the summary of the meeting, which he hopes you will find as a useful update to the situation.

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Dear Mr Davies MP

Thank you for your time on Monday.  We appreciated being able to talk with you around the issues surrounding the projects that we have currently in progress, and as promised, here is an update on the works.  Following on from today, I’ll provide you with an update each Friday of the progress for that week, and forecast for completion. 

Otley Road, Shipley

We have completed all main laying works on the corner of Otley Rd and Dockfield Rd.

We are planning on removing traffic restrictions on Otley Rd at the end of next week.

The teams are continuing to work from 7am until 9pm, to maximise daylight hours.

We are currently a week ahead of schedule.

You raised a number of important issues when we spoke on Monday, these being a suggestion that we could work 24 hours a day and concerns that the work would continue beyond the start of September, and cause major disruption when the schools commence the Autumn term.

In respect to 24 hours working, I have spoken with my operation colleagues and we are not planning on 24 hour working, for a number of reasons:

1                The equipment that we are using to dig the trenches is specialist equipment that allows us to excavate in a quicker way.  Unfortunately, whilst this speeds up the work, it does cause a lot of noise.  We have already had two complaints from residents that live near this project about the noise during the day.  We would anticipate further complaints should we use this equipment overnight.

2               We are making excellent progress with this project already, and are maximising available daylight hours.  We are forecasting that all road restrictions will be removed before the schools re-open in September. 

3          Of course, should this situation change, we will reconsider the option to work during the night.