The road to nowhere

Driving down to the band I play for in Deal involves traveling down one road that has been in the process of widening to a duel carriageway for well over a year. It appears it's still not finished despite cones keeping one lane either side for what seems to me precisely no reason whatsoever. The road works finished weeks ago. The purpose of this road widening is to cope with the traffic generated by my districts largest employer, Pfizer (of viagara fame).



Allow me to digress for a moment of explanation.

During the 1980's, I worked at Ramsgate Harbour as a shipping clerk. The port was pretty successful with a regular passenger/freight ferry service that ran to Dunkirk in France. Although Ramsgate is much smaller than Dover, it did provide a suitable and viable alternative. Sally Line ferries were pretty popular too. The one drawback of Port Ramsgate was the lack of a suitable access road to the ferry terminal.





18 metre articulated lorries used to rumble down through the town before making a U turn onto the old access road along Ramsgate Marina. The building of a new road and even at one point a possible rail freight link was discussed for years until the decision was finally made to cut a tunnel through the cliff avoiding the town centre. This tunnel and road was finally completed in 2000, however, by that time, Sally ferries had pulled out of Ramsgate. There is still a limited freight ferry service there but nothing like the amount of traffic the road built to carry.



So, returning to my introduction to this blog. The road leading to Pfizer is at some point going to open. Cue local news last week that revealed Pfizer are shutting down the production side of their operation with the loss of 400 of the 3000 employee's on the site. There are rumours that Pfizer may even pull out of Ramsgate. I get that feeling of dejavu. Another road built too late.



It's that time of year, The equinox..... enjoy