Sign blunder confuses residents over road closure

Guilsfield residents and motorists can breathe a sigh of relief after signs advertising a near five-week road closure are wrong, with the disruption only expected to last four days.

Residents were up-in-arms when the sign appeared at the weekend stating that a main road through the village would be closed from July 21-August 24.

It sparked a frantic round of angry Facebook posts with residents already fed up with months of disruption caused by roadworks connecting new housing developments in the village.

Guilsfield also grabbed our headlines last week after a newly-laid pavement was ripped up after just two months for pipework.

We’ve managed to clear up the confusion and it appears that the work to resurface the pavement will also take place during the road closure of July 21-24.

The whole episode has irked the village’s county councillor, Ian Harrison, who told us: “You could call this a comedy of errors. Embarrassing for the poor individual who set up a five-week rather than four-day road closure sign. But the professionals allegedly running Scottish Power are a bunch of comedians spending and wasting our money. Why didn’t they liaise with the building contractors to do the power cable replacement before the footpath was finished?”

A Powys County Council spokesperson told us that “Scottish Power have been instructed to replace the information boards with the correct dates of 21-24 July”.

“We have also been informed by SPP / Scottish Power that they will be resurfacing the footway in from of Teras Yr Efail under the planned road closure next week,” they told us.