Open anc shut case at Dover
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IT WAS a case of open and shut for the new Dover relief road on Friday — it was opened in a blaze of publicity and shut a few hours later because of gale force winds.
But that didn't stop CM and White Trux International pulling off something of a scoop for the road haulage industry.
White Trux lent us a driver and TIR unit so that we could test just what the new seven and a half mile stretch of by-pass between Lydden and Dover would mean to the average operator.
To get to the opening ceremony we took the old route to the Eastern Docks along the A2, which was heavily congested.
Then we tacked on the end of the official motorcade which was forming up on reclaimed land where the new road meets the Castle Jetty roundabout at the docks entrance.
But we did not stay at the back for long. For Peter Reece, MP for Dover and Deal, who was performing the opening, decided that he would like to get a truck driver's eye-view of the by-pass as well.
Could he possibly travel in White Trux's Volvo with us? No sooner said than done, and from the back of the grid we were promoted to pole posit don!
With the motorcade following behind, the Volvo started off on the semi-circular viaduct which swings out over the docks and the sea and climbs to the top of East Cliffs.
Between the Castle Jetty roundabout and the junction with the A258 the new road has a crawler lane because of the 1 in 20 gradient.
It then curves north of the Duke of York's Military School at Guston and continues westward to Whitfield, where there is a junction with the A256. From there it runs west and joins the A2 just north of Lyddenh ill Wood.
High up in the Volvo cab Mr Reece told us that the relief road would make life a lot more bearable for people living along the old A2 dock route.
TIR vehicles had given resi dents a rough deal and even though much of the new road, known as Jubilee Way, is single two-lane carriageway it was expected that most of the heavy international traffic would use it.
Driver Allen Rettie, 28, was quick to spring to the operators' defence. Did Mr Reece realise, he asked, that everything he had on his back had been carried by truck at one stage in its life? Trucks could only travel on the roads that were provided and he for one would much rather use a quicker modern by-pass than disturb people's lives.
Mr Reece said he couldn't agree more. It was a pity that Dover had to wait so long for its relief road.
By the time we had corn pleted the journey both ways the wind was blowing a force five gale. It did not affect the fully loaded Volvo as it came out of the cutting in the East Cliff and headed down the viaduct.
But Allen said that a highsided furniture van would probably have been blown over. An hour or so later the road was closed because of the wind and police shut it down again on Sunday.
That aside, Jubilee Way will clearly be a big plus for operators running to and from the docks. Michael White, managing director of White Trux, of Aylesham, Canterbury, believes that in the traffic jammed summer months it could save up to an hour in the journey time.