Chris Mockridge is Bridgwater Guy Fawkes Carnival’s Traffic Management Director and has over 20 years of carnival traffic management experience.

In this column, Chris talks about road closures for this weekend’s carnival and how they are used to manage the safety of the event:

Unfortunately, our carnival would not take place without road closures.

For the past six months myself and members of the carnival committee’s Road Traffic team have been meeting officials from Somerset Highways and Avon & Somerset Police, discussing the required road closures for our carnival and the impact they could have upon the community.

Every effort is made to reduce this impact, however we also need to consider the work that needs to be undertaken to make the route safe for our entrants and spectators.

The road closures are implemented under Section 16A of the Road Traffic Act 1984. Plans are drawn and submitted to the authorities showing the roads to be closed, along with diversion routes and the relevant signage to be used.

Our road closures are installed and manned by volunteers who all have a chapter 8 qualification. Chapter 8 provides best practice guidance and requirements for lawfully undertaking traffic management duties on the highway.

The main roads leading into the town are closed on carnival day at 16:00 hours. There are two reasons for this:

  1. To enable our team to install crowd management equipment on the procession route, which is important to keep spectators safe
  2. To allow vehicles inside the road closures, the chance to get out
     

We reopen roads after the carnival procession reaches certain points on the route, and following discussions between myself, Somerset Highways, and the Police. We use information passed onto us by our 15 radio marshals who are placed at strategic junctions to make those decisions.

Over the years, our road traffic teams have been receiving increasing levels of unacceptable verbal abuse from angry and frustrated road users.

Therefore, I would like to use this column to remind members of the public that any type of abuse will not be tolerated. All of the people who help with road traffic duties at the carnival are volunteers and do not personally get paid. They are doing this solely because they enjoy the carnival, and they want to play their part in Bridgwater’s biggest night of the year.

Please treat everyone on a road closure point at Bridgwater Guy Fawkes Carnival this weekend with the respect and the courtesy they deserve.

Thank you for your help and cooperation, and I hope you have a great time at this year’s carnival celebrations.

Chris Mockridge       

Traffic Management Director, Bridgwater Guy Fawkes Carnival