I understand that this bus stop has been the location of an accident previously between a pedestrian getting off a bus and a cyclist. I suggest that careful consideration needs to be given to future risks of such collisions which will be exacerbated by what we understand to be the current design.

Do you have drawings showing the proposed positions for all bus shelters along the route? Clearly the issues highlighted here may also be relevant at other points. As you are aware there is already a concern about the use of floating bus stops along the trams route and those concerns will be compounded by the inappropriate location of the bus shelters.

Of course, there are no trams using Ocean Drive at the moment but the road is open in both directions and heavy goods vehicles including construction traffic may be using it.”

“Here’s a summary of my experience:

1. Near constant out of hours working over the past 18 months. Latest example is a particularly good one – dropped wood off at 00.35 am on Friday and it’s still there at 10 am Monday, and I’ll make a note of when it’s used given that “it’s got to happen”. The collective attitude stinks and we just suffer ad infinitum. I have reported countless times and have received countless apologies, but nothing ever improves.
2. Poor planning, e.g. delayed concrete delivery leads to noise for >12 hours which should never happen. Our home life should not be the cost of poor planning and a refusal to reschedule work.
3. Every single councillor has done absolutely nothing to make this better. Almost every email has been ignored, and invitations to attend meetings have also been snubbed repeatedly.
4. Swearing, spitting (pandemic!), shouting (with swearing) unnecessarily. These bad behaviours are not remedied and nobody penalises workers. They are terrified they walk off the job. Again, why is it all at our expense. This is not considerate construction as they claim!
5. Poor monitoring of noise and vibration data, putting us at risk as residents re potential damage to our homes and wellbeing.
6. There are not enough monitoring stations in sensitive areas – perfect examples would be constitution street and beside flats at tower place (where work is very close!).
7. Incompetence in the handling of claims. I had a claim for noise mitigation refused on the basis of not exceeding the noise limits. I point out they did exceed so they refuse on the basis of this not being a nuisance. I then point out the data is incomplete, with 15% of it missing because batteries were not changed so they change the reason for refusing to noise being inevitable. It’s not damage, more just the fact I want to enjoy my home which is not reasonable… So, we go from the sole use of data to refuse a claim to just ignoring the fact there isn’t even data to prove / disprove! They still never answered to say why the loss adjustor missed the fact that huge swathes of data were missing…. He’s not competent if he can’t spot that! It’s possibly the most unscientific argument I’ve ever seen.
8. Repeatedly asked for regular noise and vibration ituation like this.
9. Surveys not carried out on all properties facing the tram works– they only took low quality photos (probably with a phone) of the back of my house! Despite a successful stage 2 complaint to the council the project refused to do a survey. In fact, they refused to comply with any of the significant recommendations returned by the senior solicitor who handled the complaint.
10. Streetlights repeatedly cut off by tram workers and left for months in darkness – safe streets? Complaints lead nowhere and my partner won’t even walk the dog in some areas for fear of being robbed, assaulted, or worse.
11. Repeatedly cut off internet and refuse to pay claims based on loss of personal time that had to be recouped as I work from home. I was unable to ‘prove’ the loss, so flatly refused by the same loss adjustor outlined above.
12. Trams vehicles don’t comply with laws of the highway, causing danger to other road users and pedestrians. They go through red lights all the time, wrong way down 1-way streets etc., reverse out in front of pedestrians and force you out of the way. They’re a disgrace.
13. No / very poor pedestrian access and signage in this area – it’s a miracle nobody has been killed!
14. Extremely unsafe practice by workers, e.g. smoking in exposed utilities, lifting materials over the heads of pedestrians with a digger. All reported, but of course nothing changes. It’s very dangerous living in this area around these workers. Reported to HSE / authorities, but always end up back at the council and their refusal to penalise / sanction due to fear of walk-off the project.
15. Sworn at by tram workers for asking them to drive on the right side of the road after nearly running me down.
16. Endless engine idling and lack of acoustic shielding on mobile generators. These things are easy wins, but workers simply refuse to comply. People have even asked them to stop / use this but they refuse. I’ve reported this hundreds of times, but nothing improves.
17. They decided to put bark down on the newly planted areas with a ridiculous device that blasted a lot into our gardens. I asked them to clear out and replace the stone chippings / bark mix but of course have heard nothing. If they’d delivered it in bags I’d have done it myself to save the inconvenience, but what’s happened is they made a mess of my property and did nothing to fix it (yet). Am I now to do the work and also pay to fix this myself…
18. I was told by SFN (in front of council rep) that the construction code of practice is a set of guidelines, not rules. What is the code of practice there for then?!? Is it not there to set out expectations of how the project should be delivered and what the rules are (e.g. no smoking in the work site especially near utilities!).
19. The project management boast of endless ’toolbox talks’ but what is clear is that it makes no difference whatsoever to what happens on the ground.”