Jason Bentley, founder and managing director of Traco UK Ltd in Hilsea, is frustrated about the impact Eastern Road Closures are having on his business.
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00:00 My name is Jason Bentley, I'm the founder and MD of the Tracker UK, formerly the Recycled Assets Company.
00:06 Brilliant, so tell me why we've come to see you today.
00:09 So you've come down today because I logged a complaint with Penny Mordant and I copied the news
00:15 really about the recent spate of road closures, particularly the Eastern Road but also London Road
00:21 with SGN digging up the road for Lane New Pipe.
00:25 The frustration is that I run a business that requires me to run vehicles all around the city
00:31 and in and out of the city and the problem is workers aren't getting in to work on time
00:35 which means it's putting those jobs off and back, which means I'm calling clients explaining
00:40 "Sorry, can't get to you today or we're going to be delayed" which pushes everything back.
00:44 When we come back from jobs, if we're coming back from London with a truck full of assets
00:48 and we've got crew trucks, we have six people to the truck, they're sitting waiting on the M27
00:54 to get into Portsmouth because say the Eastern Road is blocked.
00:57 Now they're paid by the hour and that payment stops when they come back to the yard
01:01 so the financial impact of the business is roughly circa when each day the Eastern Road is closed
01:07 it can be up to £300 a day that we lose in revenue.
01:10 I don't mind losing it so much if I'm paying staff but I think more than that it's the mental stress
01:17 of the road closures, having to re-jig your diary and if the guys are in the truck and they've done
01:24 a 10 hour day already and now they're waiting to get back into the city
01:28 so they're not going to be fresh for the next day.
01:30 So the impact is not just financial, it's mental and I know the fatigue from some of the guys
01:37 and some of the stories is just horrible to listen to and they can't get to their appointments on time,
01:41 they can't get to the nursery on time to pick up their child and that has other consequences.
01:46 So it's just been a horrible, horrible 8 months of road closures that's affected the city
01:53 and I worry that the wider impact it has on other businesses.
01:58 Have you spoken to other businesses?
02:01 Yeah I've spoken to other businesses, like-minded businesses like us in a similar position
02:05 where they need to move goods around the city or get in and anecdotally one of them was saying
02:13 he's noticed a palpable change in his area, in his business.
02:17 People just seem to be a little bit more tense, less vibrant and energetic
02:22 and the message was Portsmouth isn't open for business, which I agree totally.
02:28 I don't think Portsmouth is open for business right now.
02:31 What would you like to see moving forward?
02:34 Half the problem is you don't know who to blame.
02:36 Is it the road work company? Is it the council? Is it the workers themselves?
02:40 Who do you aim your anger at?
02:43 I would like to see a new position within the council funded by the works of the utility companies.
02:50 A road work czar if you like and that person would ensure that before any road works are put on the road
02:57 that it's cleared by the czar, it's understood who is doing what, when and by when
03:02 and if you run over that there's penalties and then there's a contract in place with a particular road work company
03:08 if it's an urgent problem then treat it like it's urgent, fix it round the clock, get it done
03:14 and that doesn't seem to happen.
03:17 Often we'll drive by and there's no one at the road works and that incenses people even more.
03:22 They've just queued for an hour to get in to see a few lines of cones and no one behind them.
03:28 That incenses people to the point where it's their livelihoods at stake.
03:32 All they're trying to do is work. All they're trying to do is get into work.
03:36 Let us work and that's the real issue that I've got.
03:39 We need someone to take control. If that's the council, great, but someone has to.