Anyone using the A167 past through Durham City will have got caught up in congestion caused by road works by the new Durham Johnston school. This is due to new sewer connections being installed. The sceduled time period for the work is 28 July - 13 August, but I hope it will not take as long as that. To be avoided if you can!

Readers may remembers that the promised barriers along the A167 between Merryoaks and the Cock of the North roundabout didn’t get completed because of a shortage of the right kind of steel! I have just been notified that the work is now scheduled for 4 August - 5 September.

Finally, there will be road resurfacing works on short stretches of Potters Bank and Lowes Barn Bank close to the Duke of Wellington traffic lights over the two weekends 9-10 and 16-17 August. This will close each road while the work is being done, so watch out for detours.

I’ve just received copies of a load of letters from County Hall about bus stops.

Firstly, all bus stops in Durham City District are (under Part 6 of the Traffic Management Act 2004, no less) to be made “no stopping except buses”.  So, after the relevant road markings are in place, it will be an offence to park at a bus stop (unless you are a bus, of course).

Seondly, a number of currently unused bus stops will be removed as there are no longer any buses running past them. The ones I have been notifed of (in my area) are:

At Durham School, Quarryheads Lane
Opposite Durham School, Quarryheads Lane
Adjacent to 21 St Margaret’s Court, Margery Lane
Opposite 18A North End
Opposite and adjacent to Inishfree, Whitesmocks

Please let me know if there is an issue with these removals.

After three months of cones and barrier work, the A167 south of the Cock of the North roundabout down to the Honest Lawyer is complete and everything is cleared away.

On the other hand, apart from a few forgotten cones, to the north of the roundabout all that has been done is a few metres of barrier at the Merryoaks end as pictured.

Given that the spate of fatal accidents over the last couple of years were mainly on this northern stretch, this could be a cause for real concern.

Having spoken to the Northern Engineers Office on Friday, however, I have been assured that this stretch will be completed later in the summer (all being well).

The reason for the gap in the work is that the contractors ran out of the correct kind of barrier!

Apparently, the design of the barriers is non-standard because it has to be erected close to other obstructions (i.e. the trees on the central reservation) and this sort of barrier is in short supply.

This is all rather odd since you would have thought that they could have rather easily measured the total length required when they ordered the stuff in the first place.

I had a discussion last week with the Highways Department at County Hall about a number of parking issues and they drew my attention to the fact that the two Land Registry Offices in Durham (Pity Me and Southfield Way) are to merge within the next two years and be housed at the Southfield Way site.

This may have amassive impact on parking in the area as the parking available at Southfield Way is totally inadequate for the number of staff that the office will then have to accommodate.

There are already issues with parking in a number of areas around North End, but unless something serious is done by the Land Registry to control its staff parking, I can see streets in parts of the area being swamped with commmuters cars.

If that happens, then there will have to be some decisive action by the County Council to deal with the problem. Highways are currently reluctant to extend the area of controlled (residents’) parking, but this may be the only course of action - if the problem comes to pass.

I was notified today that work is to start very soon (possibly next week) to install crash barriers on the central reservation of the A167 north and south of the Cock of the North roundabout where there have beeen several fatal accidents over the past three years.

North of the roundabout there will be a barrier only on the southbound side (where the accidents have been).  The work will take around 8 weeks or so.

This work will not stop accidents, however. If people drive too fast, the danger will persist, although we can hope that the outcomes may be less severe.

As expected, the planners at Durham City Council have recommended refusal of the Banks planning application for Mount Oswald.

The matter is on the agenda for the City Council Development Control Committee on Thursday 10 January 2008 (5.30 pm at The Studio, Gala Theatre, Durham City).

The report (which you can see here: Banks Mount Oswald Planning report ) is scathing about the application and has virtually nothing good to say about it. Indeed the Highways Agency has gone so far as to issue a directive to the Council to refuse the application because it does not address properly the impact of the development on the strategic road network around Durham City.

So the application will be refused which is excellent news for the hundreds of local people who have supported the campaign against this montrous proposal.

Nonetheless, I hope lots of people will turn up to the meeting to show their support for having this application tossed out.

Some good news on the accident black spot along the A167 near the Cock of the North; I have just been informed that crash barriers will be installed next year (probably in the spring) on the dualled stretch between Merryoaks and The Honest Lawyer at Croxdale.

This stretch has seen several fatal accidents over the past three years. I have been pressing for barriers for at least the last 18 months.

To be fair, I was pushing at an open door, but the problem has been the difficulty of dealing with the road layout with so many trees and lighting poles on the central reservation.

The solution will be a non-standard barrier, which is why it is taking so long to implement.

The decision to put the barriers in pre-dates by many months the latest accident when the son of the local coroner was killed.