Streets Ahead way behind
Roadworks at the end of Scott Road have been ongoing since July. What was
originally meant to have been a six week job has now taken more than sixteen,
causing significant disruption and annoyance as buses are diverted down
Abbeyfield Road and small side roads as ‘rat runs’.
Local resident Graham Jones has been driven to verse in response (with apologies
to Flanders and Swann’s “The Gasman Cometh”).
It was sometime in early spring that Amey came to move the walls
On Scott Road side of Barnsley Road but also near the schools.
It took them months to sort it out, they didn’t do much at all.
A temporary bus stop at Orphanage Road they never did install.
Oh it gave the local people dirt, delays and rats.
In midsummer they shut Scott Road for a period of “six weeks”,
Kerbs, cables and pipes were moved amid the rodents’ squeaks.
Two bus routes were diverted, some people couldn’t get out,
Six weeks completion time was beginning to look in doubt.
Oh it gave the local people dirt, delays and rats.
British Gas had dug a hole, then they disappeared for ages.
(They’d have been better getting someone from the Yellow Pages.)
Then they had a problem with the pipes to someone’s meter.
Even this held up a process that could have been much neater.
Oh it gave the local people dirt, delays and rats.
They didn’t answer my emails and their website it was down,
So we were kept in the dark by those that run this town.
I asked the workmen on the site but they had not much news
About the bombsite by our house, the longstanding mud and ooze.
Oh it gave the local people dirt, delays and rats.
All the same, the finish date scheduled for September
By Streets Ahead, was discreetly put back until mid-November.
Not a leaflet, not a poster, no street info, I’m sure
That they keep us in the dark as we live in Pitsmoor.
Oh it gave the local people dirt, delays and rats.
Mid-November came and went, but now another hitch
BT can’t change a junction box cos there’s a big match on the pitch!
Another week, another deadline, what excuse is next.
No wonder Burngreave people are getting rather vexed.
Oh it gave the local people dirt, delays and rats.
North Sheffield Better Buses are financing this project.
To improve our local buses might have earned respect.
Instead they’ve spent many thousands, it really isn’t fair,
To kill us with more traffic and more polluted air!
Oh it gave the local people dirt, delays and rats.
STOP PRESS: At 8pm on Sunday 26th November we received news that Scott
Road is now back open. Hopefully it still will be by the time you are reading your
Messenger.
