Road closure at A534 Smallman Road/ Bedford Street

Works ref: UD002140035801. I approached Nantwich Road westbound at about 2045 last night, hoping to get to Tesco Wistaston to refuel, then Rope Lane, back to Shavington. You’ve had ‘ROAD CLOSED’ signs at the junction of South Street/ Mill Street for a couple of weeks now, in connection with works on Mill Street and it didn’t register with me that there may be another closure. I carried on up the A534 westbound before approaching a closure at Smallman Road but with absolutely no diversionary signage in place, or turning area. Other drivers had similarly made the same mistake, and the area was an absolute mess. Some drivers u-turned, others, like me, diverted to go westbound as closely as possible via Smallman Road. Then the fun started- being completely unfamiliar with that area and having no diversionary signage, the journey became extremely hazardous and I almost hit another car close to Stewart Street not realising a badly signed and worn road marking was actually a give-way stop junction. My mind went back to the recent debacle of the Rope Lane closure in the summer holidays, when several accidents happened at the Joey The Swan junction because drivers were 1) unfamiliar with the alternative route, 2) served with non-existent, worn and poorly maintained road signage. I’d like to feedback, ahead of a more formal complaint if I don’t get an adequate response, that your ‘road closed’ signage in this case conflicted with another closure on Mill Street and was not clear enough to indicate another closure further up on the A534, that you have insufficient diversionary route signage to manage traffic back onto Nantwich Road at the earliest point, and that in general, you need to pay more attention in assessing and making fit diversionary routes prior to accepting lots of applications for very frustrating, sometimes conflicting, and potentially extremely hazardous road closures. We can all drive safely when we know where we’re going: you play a big part in that.