Traco UK Ltd Eastern Road Closures Impact

The News, Portsmouth

Jason Bentley, founder and managing director of Traco UK Ltd in Hilsea, is frustrated about the impact Eastern Road Closures are having on his business.

Transcript

00:00 My name is Jason Bentley, I'm the founder and MD of the Tracker UK, formerly the Recycled Assets Company.

00:06 Brilliant, so tell me why we've come to see you today.

00:09 So you've come down today because I logged a complaint with Penny Mordant and I copied the news

00:15 really about the recent spate of road closures, particularly the Eastern Road but also London Road

00:21 with SGN digging up the road for Lane New Pipe.

00:25 The frustration is that I run a business that requires me to run vehicles all around the city

00:31 and in and out of the city and the problem is workers aren't getting in to work on time

00:35 which means it's putting those jobs off and back, which means I'm calling clients explaining

00:40 "Sorry, can't get to you today or we're going to be delayed" which pushes everything back.

00:44 When we come back from jobs, if we're coming back from London with a truck full of assets

00:48 and we've got crew trucks, we have six people to the truck, they're sitting waiting on the M27

00:54 to get into Portsmouth because say the Eastern Road is blocked.

00:57 Now they're paid by the hour and that payment stops when they come back to the yard

01:01 so the financial impact of the business is roughly circa when each day the Eastern Road is closed

01:07 it can be up to £300 a day that we lose in revenue.

01:10 I don't mind losing it so much if I'm paying staff but I think more than that it's the mental stress

01:17 of the road closures, having to re-jig your diary and if the guys are in the truck and they've done

01:24 a 10 hour day already and now they're waiting to get back into the city

01:28 so they're not going to be fresh for the next day.

01:30 So the impact is not just financial, it's mental and I know the fatigue from some of the guys

01:37 and some of the stories is just horrible to listen to and they can't get to their appointments on time,

01:41 they can't get to the nursery on time to pick up their child and that has other consequences.

01:46 So it's just been a horrible, horrible 8 months of road closures that's affected the city

01:53 and I worry that the wider impact it has on other businesses.

01:58 Have you spoken to other businesses?

02:01 Yeah I've spoken to other businesses, like-minded businesses like us in a similar position

02:05 where they need to move goods around the city or get in and anecdotally one of them was saying

02:13 he's noticed a palpable change in his area, in his business.

02:17 People just seem to be a little bit more tense, less vibrant and energetic

02:22 and the message was Portsmouth isn't open for business, which I agree totally.

02:28 I don't think Portsmouth is open for business right now.

02:31 What would you like to see moving forward?

02:34 Half the problem is you don't know who to blame.

02:36 Is it the road work company? Is it the council? Is it the workers themselves?

02:40 Who do you aim your anger at?

02:43 I would like to see a new position within the council funded by the works of the utility companies.

02:50 A road work czar if you like and that person would ensure that before any road works are put on the road

02:57 that it's cleared by the czar, it's understood who is doing what, when and by when

03:02 and if you run over that there's penalties and then there's a contract in place with a particular road work company

03:08 if it's an urgent problem then treat it like it's urgent, fix it round the clock, get it done

03:14 and that doesn't seem to happen.

03:17 Often we'll drive by and there's no one at the road works and that incenses people even more.

03:22 They've just queued for an hour to get in to see a few lines of cones and no one behind them.

03:28 That incenses people to the point where it's their livelihoods at stake.

03:32 All they're trying to do is work. All they're trying to do is get into work.

03:36 Let us work and that's the real issue that I've got.

03:39 We need someone to take control. If that's the council, great, but someone has to.

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