Roads gridlocked for census

ROUTES from Bexhill to Hastings were gridlocked for large parts of April 22 as the county council undertook a traffic census at Glyne Gap.

Traffic on De La Warr Road is bad enough at rush hour on the best of days but yesterday's random stop checks created slow-moving tailbacks to King Offa Way in one direction and Wrestwood Road in the other.

Motorists reported journey times to Hastings of up to 45 minutes.

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Police assisted county council staff in questioning a random selection of eastbound traffic from 7am-7pm.

A county council spokeswoman explained: "We carry out these checks to get a picture of why people use the road, where they are headed to, where they have come from and the reason for their journey.

"The data gathered will help inform the Bexhill-Hastings link load proposals."

But van driver David Cornelius, 31, said: "It's bad enough most mornings without all this. I understand it's something they have to do sometimes but there didn't seem to be any prior warning. Now I'm late for work and in a pretty bad mood. Bring on the link road!"

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The county council spokeswoman added: "We do not give notice because we want to get a realistic picture of traffic on a day to day basis.

"We realise there were delays at rush hour but it was necessary for us to operate at those times for us to get an idea of how the traffic ebbs and flows throughout the day."