Month: <span>February 2017</span>

The roadworks.org website has posted notices of two sets of works in our area which are to be carried out today and tomorrow (27 & 28 Feb. 17).
The one with potentially the highest impact is located on A53 at Espley Roundabout. It involves the upgrade of a “pole” by Vodafone and expected to take place over two days. Traffic control will be by means of Stop/Go boards, and delays are expected. The exact location of the works is described as being in the grass verge on N side A53 20m W of the roundabout. This contributor is not sure what “S/L 14 25m W S/L 13 opp” describes, but suspects S/L may indicate single line/lane traffic. Presumably the pole concerned is an upgraded mast which should be good news for users of Vodafone’s network.
The other set of works, which are scheduled for Tuesday 28 Feb. 17, are on the road to Weston Under Redcastle. This too involves the replacement of pole, but here by Western Power Distribution. The works are described as taking place opposite Hillside, between the [old] A442 junction Hodnet and the B5065 junction Dairy House, Weston Under Redcastle. Traffic control will be by Stop/Go boards and delays are likely to occur.

Yesterday’s (23/2/17) weather news was dominated by the dangers of the storm named Doris by the Met Office. The saddest reported incident was the death of a woman after she was hit by debris falling on to a street in Wolverhampton. In Stoke-on-Trent a woman in her sixties was taken to hospital after she was hit on the head by the dislodged roof of a car port. There many other reports from across Britain of damage and travel disruption caused by this “weather bomb”.
Whilst locally many trees have been heavily pruned by the wind, there were no reports of fallen trees and the like. Shropshire Fire and Rescue Service report that at about 12:30pm the Hodnet Fire Crew were despatched to an incident on The Avenue, Peplow where the roof of a stable block roof had been blown onto a residential property. Fire Service staff secured the loose material with lines and straps. No injuries were reported.

Two sets of roadworks, being carried out over the next few days, affecting the Wollerton and Lostford areas have been announced on Roadworks.org. Both are being carried out by BT and seem to be connected.
One announcement describes work taking place between 17 and 20 February  (estimated), which is expected to have a moderate impact on journey times, with traffic control being by three-way signals.. The location is given as “From Drayton Field To Lostford Junction A53, Market Drayton, Shropshire”
The other announcement refers to work on Lostford Lane over the same four days. Whilst this is expected to only have a slight impact on journey times, with traffic also being managed by three-way lights (presumably the same same set as above). In this instance the location is given as, “Lostford Lane, Wollerton”.
In simple terms, be prepared over the next few days for delays between Wollerton and Lostford.
 

A local resident has contacted us to say that over the weekend they found a mobile phone which someone must have dropped.
The phone, which is not a smart phone, was on the old road which runs parallel to the A53 (Hodnet bypass). This is the road from the junction for Stoke-on-Tern which runs past Heathbrook, and in the past went to Wollerton.
If you lost a phone, possibly in this area, over the weekend, please use this form to contact the web team. Please say when you lost it and give a brief description. If it matches what we have been told, we will pass your message on to the person concerned who will get in contact with you in the hope of restoring it to its owner.

Today (9 Feb. 17) Hodnet’s Fire Crew were called out twice.
The first incident was in response to a chimney fire in a house on the Crescent in Station Road.
Following a call received just before 12:30pm the Shropshire Fire and rescue Service received a call reporting a Chimney Fire in Hodnet. A total of four fire appliances, including the Aerial Ladder Platform, were mobilised from both Hodnet and Shrewsbury. An Operations Officer lso attended the incident.
Dealing with the incident involved the use of a positive pressure ventilation fan, a stirrup pump and small tools. No time when the incident was declared closed is given on the Incident Report which can be found here.

Around 9.00pm the crew were mobilised again, this time to another road accident on the A442 in Peplow. (The previous one was Sat. 28 Jan and involved two vehicles – report.)
At the time of posting (10:30pm) no incident report has been uploaded to the SFRS website, but it seems to involve a single vehicle, which left the road about half a mile south of Peplow crossroads. A number of emergency vehicles attended the scene, but the road remained open to traffic.
Update: Shortly before midnight SFRS reported here that a call was received at 21:05 reporting the accident. It adds that just one saloon vehicle was involved and no one was trapped. The stop message was received at 21:26. Embarrassingly for this “reporter” the report states that one fire appliance was mobilised from Wellington. However, he can assure you it was parked at the incident as if it had approached from Hodnet, nit Wellington.