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Residents fear road closure chaos

Residents are worried that essential work by Thames Water could cause traffic chaos in the area. The company begins replacing Victorian water pipes at the Sevens Stars corner on Goldhawk Road, Askew Road and Paddenswick Road on January 11.

There are fears the works, which are expected to last for nine weeks, could bring traffic to a grinding halt. Part of the westbound lane on Goldhawk Road, from Brading Terrace to Paddenswick Road, will be closed and a diversion will be put in place via Uxbridge Road and Askew Road.

Location_road_closedGoldhawk Road will be open as usual for eastbound traffic, with only the junction with Greenside Road closed. All other side streets will be open to traffic. Temporary traffic lights at the roundabouts will keep traffic flowing as smoothly as possible. Coningham Road will be open one-way northbound, and the 94 and 237 buses will use this route, so that services carry on running during the works.

Five old cast iron pipes at the roundabouts, which Thames Water says are at risk of bursting, will be replaced with three much larger plastic ones. Over half of the water mains in London are at least 100 years old, and a third have been in use for more than 150 years.

Neil Franks, project manager for Thames Water, said: “We are committed to reducing leakage and we can only achieve this by systematically replacing all of London’s leakiest, cast iron pipes that date back as far as the Victorian era. Due to the scale of this work, it won’t happen overnight, but the benefits of the project are already evident with leakage now at its lowest ever rate.

“We appreciate that work of this nature does bring inevitable disruption, but this huge investment will bring benefits to the area for years to come.”

Thames Water is holding a drop-in session for residents and businesses on Wednesday January 6, 10am-8pm, at Thames Water’s mobile information unit at Carpet Right on Goldhawk Road, W12 9PE.

For more information, contact Thames Water’s customer centre on 0845 6410011, quoting reference number TNU4, or visit www.thameswater.co.uk/newpipes