I have just received the following notice from South Benfleet Essex County Councillor Andrew Sheldon:

GAS MAINS REPLACEMENT WORKS - BREAD AND CHEESE HILL ROLLING LANE CLOSURE AND TWO WAY LIGHTS NEXT MONDAY 15TH JULY – MID-OCTOBER! PLAN AHEAD

Now the Essex and Suffolk Water works at Tarpots have finished Cadent are going to start their mains replacement works on Bread and Cheese Hill between Rhoda Road and Kenneth Road.

These are 1930s mains that are being replaced to make them more resilient to leaks and ready for a future conversion to hydrogen supply.

Cadent have agreed to do the work in phases to minimise the length of lane closures and create a smaller traffic build up as possible.

The first phase will start by the junction with Rhoda Road on Monday and they will work their way up the hill. Each phase is scheduled to last approximately three weeks.

The October timeline also includes later phases on the unmade part of Thundersley Park Road.

I asked the works be tabled during the school holidays and depending on the progress made there is a chance that the works on Bread and Cheese Hill stretch may be finished by the time the schools and colleges return in September. I will continue to update residents on the progress of the works and the likelihood of this happening closer to the end of the six-week holidays.

As with all old infrastructure there is a risk that it was not initially mapped correctly and that the main may stray more into the centre of the road in places necessitating complete short-term closures. Hopefully this won’t be the case! But if it does happen I will update residents and do what I can to both warn everyone well in advance and will work with Cadent to minimise disruption and plan the closures as well as possible.

Cadent will also be replacing the mains along Shipwrights Drive along the school holidays as well.

I have however requested that no other utilities works take place along Church Road, Hart Road and Essex Way/Benfleet Road while these works are being done to best ensure alternate routes are clear. The only works scheduled to take place in that time are carriageway repairs that won’t take more than a day or two but I will do my best to keep residents updated with them as well. Essex County Council cannot refuse a permit for emergency utility works however, but again if any are necessary I will do what I can to keep residents informed and will work the with utility companies to minimise disruption as much as possible.

I have asked that Cadent’s webpage for the works be updated for residents as often as possible with details of the works and phases https://cadentgas.com/major-projects/benfleet-canveyisland. It doesn’t appear to have been updated yet but I have been reassured it will be shortly.

Residents and businesses by the planned works will be contacted by Cadent directly by letter.

These works are a pain and I know it feels like Benfleet is being dug up every two minutes recently, but a lot of the local infrastructure our town was literally built around is coming to the end of its natural life and this investment now will hopefully see us suffer a lot less disruption to journeys in the future and less possible future supply disruption to the utilities we all rely on.

PLEASE MAKE SURE YOU PLAN AHEAD AND ALLOW EXTRA TIME FOR JOURNEYS!