Road Closure Speldhurst Road, Langton Green

We had frequent contact with SGN and Kent County Council (KCC) last week regarding the emergency road closure on Speldhurst Road, Langton Green.

SGN explained that having discovered a series of gas leaks, they investigated and found the gas main along Speldhurst Road was in poor condition. To avoid having to return at a later date to repair more leaks, they decided to replace 243m of their gas network with a new plastic pipe.

We pointed out that the closure affects two bus routes - the 285 and 286 - which impacts school pupils, and those commuting for work and the shops in Tunbridge Wells. We also highlighted Langton Green Primary School, Langton Pavilion Cafe, the village hall, and Little Birches Nursery at Langton Green Recreation Ground, which are affected too.

We said that although we appreciated that emergency works must happen, we were concerned about the lack of work that often appears to be done during long-term road closures by SGN, giving the road closure in Southborough at the end of 2022 as an example. This closure had lasted for upwards of 3 months and had caused significant disruption, especially for school buses, and we didn't want to see a repeat of this.

SGN said that lessons were learned from the Southborough closure and they no longer used the contractors who had done the work. For the current road closure, they are using the same contractors who completed work on Pembury Road, Tunbridge Wells during the summer (this work was completed ahead of schedule).

SGN has promised that they will update us, the bus companies, and local primary and secondary schools on progress throughout the works and hope to be finished by 6th October.

We have requested that KCC does not schedule any non-emergency works in the parish while the work by SGN is happening. This comes after the one-day road closure on the Speldhurst Road from Southborough on Friday - when cars that were already unable to use the Langton Green route to Tunbridge Wells were diverted again. Many of you will know that this caused chaos. It also affected the school bus route.

We will continue to keep you updated whenever we can. Please visit https://one.network for up-to-date information.