Traffic cone complaints result in 3 removals

First Edition

THE Government's Cones Hotline has taken more than 8,000 calls in the last two years - but complaints have led to the removal of needless roadworks' cones on just three occasions.

The hotline was set up to take calls about cones on roads where no work was in progress.

'We accept that motorists don't like cones and many think that they should not be there,' Andrew Myatt, the Highways Agency spokesman yesterday.

'But the hotline statistics show that in nearly every case there is a good reason for the cones being in place.'

Mr Myatt said many people used the hotline for general road information. 'Of the 8,256 calls we've had so far, 4,452 have led to written replies and the rest were just of a general nature.'

The locations of the three roadworks where cones were lifted specially following a call to the hotline were: the A3 Petersfield bypass in Hampshire in August 1993; the A23 at Bolney in West Sussex in September 1993; and between junctions 15 and 16 of the M25 in February 1994.

The 24-hour hotline began in June 1992 and, in December 1993, the Prime Minister asked for it to be re-established as part of the Citizen's Charter.