Unattended roadworks and contra-flow signals

I had the misfortune to travel east on the A35 on Monday afternoon 220822. Our journey should have taken around 60 mins, or possibly a little more given the presence of holiday traffic. Instead, because of an obstruction, it took over 90 mins because we were crawling from the roundabout at the western end of the Charmouth By-Pass some 2.5 miles ahead of the obstruction. This is wholly unacceptable. Further more, I have been told that the roadworks were still there the following day.

This is doubly unacceptable because the delay was not caused by an accident or other such incident. Instead the cause turned out to be a short stretch of one-way working a short distance west of Morcombelake, west of the Artwave art gallery.

This was the primary cause, but it was clear also that the traffic signals were set poorly, giving much more green time for traffic travelling towards Honiton than for that going towards Bridport. Thus our passage through the lights on our return journey at about 5:15pm was much swifter, and our return journey took only 55 mins overall as a result.

What added insult to injury though was that there was no-one working at the site of the obstruction, and this at around 2:30pm on a weekday afternoon, which was when we first encountered it. That smacks of dereliction of duty.

And this during the peak month of August. It used to be sacrosanct that roadworks were removed during the peak holiday periods. Surely that requirement has not been relaxed? I shudder to think about the value of all that time wasted by those stuck in this queue, many of whom were commercial in nature.

I trust you will take action to remove this obstruction as soon as you can.