{"id":63512,"date":"2015-10-30T14:19:28","date_gmt":"2015-10-30T14:19:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/?guid=441e63e1440be9c60b9af6659c1b8cda"},"modified":"2015-10-30T14:19:28","modified_gmt":"2015-10-30T14:19:28","slug":"press-release-no-trick-to-it-but-not-always-a-treat-road-workers-who-work-the-graveyard-shift","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/?p=63512","title":{"rendered":"Press release: No trick to it, but not always a treat: road workers who work the graveyard shift"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Hundreds of staff from Highways England and our contractors work around the clock to keep our major motorways and A-roads flowing.<\/p>\n

Since January 2015 our contractor Amey, who looks after road maintenance in the East, has overseen hundreds of thousands hours of work \u2013 with the vast majority of those worked while most people were asleep.<\/p>\n

And many more night-time shifts have been worked to complete the dualling of the A11, improve the Black Cat Roundabout on the A1 or widen the A14 between Histon and Girton.<\/p>\n

Now a video has been produced, giving a flavour of some of the [overnight work carried out by Highways England.0(http:\/\/bit.ly\/1Rx9YBG)<\/p>\n

With \u00a32bn of investment in roads to deliver across the East of England in the next five years, and lots of activity planned to deliver huge improvements to journeys across the region, Highways England is helping drivers to better understand why we work at night.<\/p>\n

Aran Nugent, Highways England\u2019s Service Delivery team leader for the East of England, explained:<\/p>\n

\n

There are hundreds of staff working for Highways England through the night in the east of England to help meet the challenge of running the region\u2019s biggest roads.<\/p>\n

Our road workers, traffic officers and control centre staff work through the darkness to deal with incidents, repairs and maintenance. Their dedication helps to keep drivers moving throughout the East.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Paul Brown, 46, from Ipswich, has worked in road maintenance roles across different sites in the region for the past 12 years. <\/p>\n

Married with two sons, working at night is a choice for him. <\/p>\n

\n

Working nights can actually work well around the family, Paul said.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s quiet in the day so I can get some sleep \u2013 probably more than if it was at night! I actually prefer working at night.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

But Paul understands that working through the night means his team\u2019s work often goes unnoticed.<\/p>\n

\n

People have the misconception that there\u2019s nothing happening because they might not see anything when they drive by. We don\u2019t have a vast amount of staff, normally there\u2019s a few guys doing a number of roles.<\/p>\n

We have to put the traffic management out first which requires at least four of us and then have to come back to the depot to get different vehicles for the different jobs like repairing or sweeping.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

And the safety of his team is always on his mind when they work near traffic.<\/p>\n

\n

We have everything in place to make us as safe as possible, but drivers are not always taking enough notice of pre-warning signs. We clearly sign-post our work and put warning signs out a mile in advance, plus we use the overhead messaging signs on roads that have them, stating which lanes are closed. But almost every day we see drivers ignoring these so you are always looking out for each other.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Ben Whatley, 36, from Ongar, has been in the job since April and hasn\u2019t worked nights for long.<\/p>\n

\n

Working nights is new for me, and though I find it okay I struggle with the transition from nights to days. It eats into your weekend as you don\u2019t get a Friday night and are up early on the Monday morning, but it\u2019s nice the next week when it\u2019s the other way round.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

He takes pride in responding quickly to keep road users safe.<\/p>\n

\n

The work is varied. It could be anything from debris in the carriageway, a dead deer, barrier repairs or incidents \u2013 there really is all manner of things. We\u2019re usually the first to respond, installing traffic management and checking to make sure drivers are safe from hazards.<\/p>\n

And during the winter we\u2019ll also be involved with gritting, which is also done at night.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Highways England currently has many roadworks schemes on the ground in the East which utilise overnight shifts.<\/p>\n

And our commitment to night working doesn\u2019t end with roadworks. Our customer contact centre is staffed around the clock \u2013 so anyone can call to get the latest information on their journey, at any time. And our Traffic England website gives drivers live traffic information, no matter the time or day.<\/p>\n

Our traffic officers patrol major roads around the East through the day and night \u2013 and are there to help deal with incidents and keep traffic moving.<\/p>\n

Our regional control centre, based at South Mimms, has staff monitoring CCTV screens 24\/7, and we provide traffic updates to drivers via our website and Twitter feeds, and keep traffic information services up to speed with the state of our network.<\/p>\n

For the latest traffic information, you can visit the Traffic England website<\/a> or follow @HighwaysEast for the latest updates.<\/p>\n

The Highways England customer contact centre is also available 24\/7, 365 days a year. You can get traffic information and enquire about our work by calling 0300 123 5000.<\/p>\n

General enquiries<\/h3>\n

Members of the public should contact the Highways England customer contact centre on 0300 123 5000.<\/p>\n

Media enquiries<\/h3>\n

Journalists should contact the Highways England press office on 0844 693 1448 and use the menu to speak to the most appropriate press officer.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As dark nights loom and Halloween is upon us, Highways England is hoping to shed some light on the way it works in the East of England.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63512"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=63512"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63512\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":63515,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63512\/revisions\/63515"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=63512"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=63512"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=63512"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}