Flexible working: Work dates shifted to accommodate Love Bedford event

• Cadent has rejigged its work programme to avoid a road closure for the Love Bedford event on Sunday 23 July
• New timetable will mean disruption is avoided for the event
• Cadent’s essential gas mains replacement work is also benefiting the town by helping to ensure safe and reliable gas supplies are maintained

Cadent engineers have rescheduled essential work to help ensure that the Love Bedford event is not impacted.

The planned essential gas mains replacement project which will help ‘future-proof’ the local gas mains network has been scheduled to begin on Monday 17 July.

The work involves replacing the ageing metallic gas mains in the High Street between the junction with St Paul’s Square and up to shortly before the junction with Dame Alice Street. Tough new pipes which should last for decades will replace the old mains.

To enable work to be carried out safely a road closure will be implemented in the High Street on Monday 17 July and will be lifted on Friday 21 July, two days earlier than first planned. Work will then be suspended until Monday 31July.  This is to ensure that the work does not impact the major Love Bedford event on Sunday 23 July. From Sunday 30 July one lane of the High Street will be closed and this closure is expected to be in place for the remainder of the project. Work on the project is expected to be completed on Friday 18 August 2017.

Pedestrians will have full access to the street throughout the project and businesses will remain open as normal. Signs will also be put up to remind people that businesses will be open as usual.

Cadent Authorising Engineer Dilbir Chana said: We always try to be as flexible as possible with our work and do all we can to ensure it does not impact major local events such as the Love Bedford event.

We’ve also scheduled as much of the work as we can for the school summer holiday period when roads are generally quieter to reduce any congestion our work may cause.

He added:Our essential work will help make sure people in Bedford keep on enjoying safe and reliable gas supplies for cooking and heating in the future.

We’ve carefully planned the project in close discussion with the local authorities to make sure we have as little impact as possible.

The project will also involve replacing gas service pipes to some properties. To do this project engineers will need to temporarily disconnect the gas supplies to the properties involved. Cadent will contact those properties involved to arrange access.

All Cadent engineers carry official identity cards, which people should ask to see before allowing them on their property. To verify an engineer’s identity or for any enquiries about the project people should contact Cadent customer services team on 0800 096 5678.

To find out more about Cadent‘s gas mains replacement work go to www.bettergaspipes.co.uk