FRUSTRATED Bridgnorth taxi drivers say their businesses are being “ripped apart” by multiple roadworks. Temporary traffic lights and road closures are affecting Listley Street, Northgate, Innage Lane and Whitburn Street, and congestion in the town means that taxi journeys from Low Town to High Town are taking up to 22 minutes.
Drivers can manage only three local trips in an hour instead of the usual five, and are having to turn up late because of delays beyond their control. Taxi firm owners fear customers will blame them for being unreliable as it is difficult to predict how long journeys will take.
And there are fears the problems will get worse next week when the A442 Telford Road will be closed at Fort Pendlestone and High Rock for a week, while the B4555 Highley Road at the Cankhorn closes for eight weeks.
Highways officials have been blamed by taxi firms for “poor planning” in allowing so many road closures to coincide. Pete Quinton-Jones, proprietor of Bridgnorth Taxis, said: “Already these roadworks have ripped our business apart. Listley Street was suddenly closed for three weeks with no notification – but why can’t this work be done at night?
“In the last few days journeys from Low Town to High Town have been taking up to 22 minutes. Customers are not too happy and takings are down by 20 per cent. Problems at Northgate are very bad and I expect the road to be completely gridlocked on Saturday – it’s going to be chaos.
“We have complained to the highways officers at Shirehall but they say they need five working days to respond to our comments – it’s a shambles.”
Taxi firm owners Tim Ritchie of ATR Taxis and Barry Rogers of ET Travel have also complained.
Mr Ritchie said: “There’s a limit to how many sets of lights a town can stand before it becomes gridlocked. We are doing our best to maintain a service but it’s near to impossible”.
Laura Owen, communications officer for Shropshire County Council apologised for the disruption on behalf of the authority.
“All works are planned by our local co-ordination team to cause as little disruption as possible. However we are aware that there are a number of essential works taking place at the moment in the town and we’d like to apologise for this,” she said.
