Speed cameras for a road that sees very little traffic seems very strange.

For some months we’ve been driving up Victoria avenue, from the Heaton Park end, and seen the huge poles that look like fat lamp posts. Then overnight they were transformed into camera gantries with an arm extended over the road way with 2 cameras on it. One cameras is aimed in one direction and the other in the opposite direction.

There are actually 3 gantries over Victoria Avenue, although one has no cameras on it yet. And just for good measure near the lights with the intersection of Rochdale road there’s another pair of cameras on a more normal size camera stand.

The cameras all seem to be the average speed type. And interestingly enough there is a stretch near a school that has a permanent 20mph speed zone which is going to make a lot of income for the camera operators because people will think it’s 30mph outside school hours.

There’s been an enormous investment in cameras for one short piece of road.

There haven’t been large numbers of accidents, as far as I’m aware, that were caused by speeding drivers.

The traffic volumes seem quite low and I use the road every day and at different times of the day too. For instance, after about 8pm the whole road goes very quiet anyway.

It does make you wonder whether some of the money that comes in from other speed camera schemes has to be spent on road safety. And therefore this is one way of spending that money, and at the same time getting more revenue.

Just so you know the first speed cameras are at the bottom of Victoria Avenue on the left hand side as you head up it.

The second set of cameras are also on the left, near St. Claire’s School and opposite Thompsons chip shop and the third gantry is opposite Boots.

This last week has been great fun. I’ve had the privilege of building a snowman with my children and having snowball fights with them.

Later in the week my eldest took my two youngest sledging. And they came back cold, damp and filled with glee.

And even the fact that I’ve had to clear my drive 4 times and still struggle to get the car off the drive hasn’t quite managed to dampen my winter spirits. Even watching the cars not moving on the main road outside our windows didn’t make me gloomy.

As I said it’s a privilege to take part in memory moments with your children and I hope they remember this as I will when they’re a little older. And if they don’t I’ve the video as evidence!

Situated where we are we can’t hear the Oasis gig at all, as the concert is on the Bury Old Road side of the park.

Two of Kay’s cousins borrowed a small bit of our drive to park their car and went to the concert.

Their verdict? Fantastic!

Our verdict on the how everything seemed to work?

Traffic appeared to keep moving and there didn’t seem to be the horrific traffic jams we all expected.

There was an enormous amount of people walking around Middleton Road but the park and ride buses seemed to be working well.

Having said that the Middleton Road main gate wasn’t really the focus of foot or car traffic as most people were channeled out of the gig through the Bury Old road gates and the Sheep Foot Lane one.

I know the plan was that tram passengers should make their way to Bowker Vale to get their trams home. That is they wouldn’t be able to use the closer Heaton Park tram station, possibly because it’s smaller than Bowker Vale. All I can say is I hope Metrolink laid on special tram services with double carriages for everyone.

I suspect the traffic will be much more chaotic for the remaining Oasis dates at Heaton park if the weather continues nice, although the forecast is rather gloomy over the weekend: rain is expected.

Remember there are a vast raft of parking restrictions around the area. And as I said before the Heaton Park Sainsbury’s car park is closed to Oasis traffic and again the car park’s 8 foot high gates will close long before the gig finishes!

For those who want to see how the park is laid out check the Heaton Park map and note that there are now 2 further large gates for pedestrians to exit between the Grand Lodge entrance and the text saying Bury Old road on the left of the map at the bottom.

Well here we are once again, another hole in the road.

Over the weekend a few bollards were artfully displayed along one of the lanes on Middleton Road leading away from Manchester and towards the M60.

Today the bollards have arrived in force and it looks as though they’re opening another hole in the road next to the one that was there on the opposite carriageway.

Hmm.

The result is that for people going through the roadworks there is one lane out of Manchester.

At the moment the traffic is backing up towards the petrol station near The Heaton Park hotel. So not too bad.

However, this isn’t rush hour yet!

My advice?

Steer well clear it’s going to be very, very bad.

Other Middleton Road Carriageway Affected Too

Oh, and for tomorrow, just to let you know.  When you come in to Manchester you may still have a pr0blem.

Currently one lane on the other carriageway is also blocked as they’ve put a lorry there to take the soil from the digger.

Looks like they’ve waited for Easter holidays before unleashing this potential mayhem!

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After the farce of a vast array of bollards preventing happy shoppers vacating Sainsbury’s on Saturday they’re back!

As I reported before the leak is still on Middleton Road. So two diggers have been sent in to dig a hole to find where the leak is. I’m just hoping they don’t go straight through one of the 3 mains water pipes under the road and cause absolute chaos, confusion and flooded gardens again.

There’s some traffic buildup behind the one lane of traffic cones and I’m quite sure that come the rush hour tomorrow there will be plenty of gnashing of teeth as people queue up on the M60 motorway to queue up to go round the roundabout as they queue up to go into Manchester.

Don’t say you’ve not been warned!

In the meantime, things appear to have gone quiet outside so I suspect they’ve dug as far as they can with the pneumatic drill and are now shovelling the earth out with the mini digger. All great fun…

I’ll let you know when the hole gets filled in and the bollards removed, and whether it actually resolves the problem too.

In the meantime, happy alternative route searching.

Yes, I know some quip that Manchester is a hole. To those of you I say you’ve obviously not plumbed the depths elsewhere!

The hole I refer to is on the Middleton Road carriage way from the M60 towards Manchester.

Actually the hole isn’t visible because there’s obviously a leak in one of the mains water pipes under the road as water is leaking all over the road surface.

Maybe you’re already yawning and thinking, "so what? Manchester has water leaks all over the place.

Steady on for a moment…

This is about a yard from where the same road was dug up for 3 weeks about 2 weeks ago to fix a smaller leak that was getting on the road.

That small leak caused absolute chaos on the M60 and for commuters trying to get onto the 3 Arrows roundabout and into Manchester via Middleton road. This despite the fact that Middleton road is a dual carriage way until way past the leak point.

So be warned. When the contractors return it seems likely the same problem with traffic is going to happen. So start researching those rat runs now.

Plus I hope they get to it soon as I’m not sure I want a repeat of the flood that engulfed my gardens when the mains pipe suddenly blew up and thousands of gallons of water created a swimming pool about a 20 yards long by 20 feet wide by one foot deep in the back garden a few years ago.