Gas works will be taking place at this junction for about 6 weeks, which is what the signs on High Street are warning of. Image from Apple Maps.

In the last few days there has been a lot of consternation and misplaced anger about upcoming roadworks affecting traffic in Brownhills High Street and Ogley Road.

Here’s the deal: From Sunday 1st October 2017 until approximately 10th November 2017, Cadent Gas on behalf of National Grid will be replacing gas mains at the Ogley Road and High Street junction, adjacent to the former Warreners Arms pub.

There will traffic control in operation, closure of the junction and diversions throughout the works as appropriate, but some confusion seems to be occurring that the work will actually be on the High Street where it’s been resurfaced. This is not the case.

The facts:

• The works take place from around 1st October 2017 to around 10th November 2017
• They take place on the Ogley Road/A461 High Street Junction by the old Warreners Arms pub
• The signs on the High Street are correct and are warning of an upcoming road closure AFFECTING THE HIGH STREET.
• The signs are industry standard.
• The Ogley Road/High Street junction is the site of a major and complex gas main junction, one half of which was refurbished a couple of years ago. This work is on the other half of it.
• The resurfaced High Street will not be dug up as part of this. The work is nowhere near that section of the road.
• It’s going to be a fun time with works at Streets Corner and Shire Oak also ongoing.
• Please stop ranting at me, I’m trying to help here.

I appreciate this is frustrating, but work has to be done. The public notice for these works, as very helpfully sent to me by Mark Gorman, is included below, just so we’re all clear.

I have received, and dealt with, a lot of angry messages about this in the last couple of days, many expressing outrage about the idiocy of traffic engineers supposedly destroying a recently resurfaced road.

I would politely observe that if your default position is to resort to outrage and blaming them without being in full possession of the facts, the problem isn’t traffic engineers really, is it?

For Walsall Council’s weekly list of scheduled upcoming roadworks, you can visit this page here and download a copy. Obviously, this won’t cover emergency work. If you can’t get the PDF link on that page, try a different device/browser.

I hope this clears things up a bit.

Closure notice as sent by Mark Gorman.