By community correspondent Bethan Baxter From the 27th of December 2009 to the 30th of July 2010 Seven Hills Road, B365, in Cobham will be temporarily closing due to the replacement of an existing gas main. The Southern Gas Networks will be carrying out the procedure and will be working seven days a week.

Workers will be working from 7am – 7pm and these hours may vary depending on the weather conditions. Lots of members of the public are saying they should work 24 hours a days for the amount of disruption they are going to cause. However, for safety and technical reasons, workers are only permitted to work in daylight hours.

There are lots of complaints about the time of year these road works are happening. Even though they are going to start just after Christmas, it will be winter. With winter comes ice and rain and these factors make people want to drive somewhere not walk or ride their bike. More people will be taking their kids to school by car and Notre Dame and Feltonfleet School are two schools in the Seven Hills Road area. One of the roads into Notre Dame is off the Seven Hills Road and consequently won’t be easily accessed.

A better time to start the work would be in the summer holidays when there is extended light and the roads are less busy due to people being on holiday. Of course, all the work can’t be done over a six week period, but a good start could be achieved.

Many people will be affected by this closure, people who usually travel down the road, residents of that road and businesses that are settled there. An example is the Seven Hills Country Gardens centre.

There will only be access for traffic for people who are residents or who are going to work down that road. The access will be via Burwood Road. For people coming northbound this is a huge diversion to have to make. There will also be access for pedestrians and obviously emergency vehicles.

Traffic heading southbound from Weybridge and Hersham going towards the A3 and Byfleet will have to travel down Queens Road. This will cause a lot of traffic building up in Weybridge, and the situation is already bad in that area.

For people living in towns like Walton, Molesey and Hersham, another option to get to the A3 for them is to get on at an earlier junction in Esher. This will also cause a lot more traffic filling up the high street of Esher as you have to cross it to get to the junction. As many locals know, Esher is a very busy place, and congestion in the centre can then cause problems at the Scily Isles. On the 27th of November the Southern Gas Networks are holding an information evening at the local Hilton Hotel. If anyone has any queries about what is going to happen people are welcome to go along and ask them.