As traffic in Rye copes with the complicated traffic lights as a result of gas replacement works close by the Kettle O’ Fish roundabout. where the A259 turns into Winchelsea Road from Strand Quay, another set of road works on the outskirts of Hastings has added to the traffic using this junction.
Road works on Battery Hill near Fairlight and Fairlight Cove (stopping any traffic coming into, or leaving, Fairlight from the Hastings direction) have meant that an additional relief bus service, shown above, has been added to the buses already serving Rye’s Station Approach bus stops.
The single decker Hams Travel bus goes from Rye to Winchelsea Beach, Pett Level and Fairlight Cove and then returns to Rye while the 101 double decker which normally serves the coastal route is diverted along the A259 in order to bypass the Battery Hill road works.
How long the Battery Hill roadworks will continue is uncertain as work by one of the utilities will then have to be followed up by East Sussex County Council Highways Department restoring the road surfaces – and the work was expected to possibly take 10 weeks in total.
In the meantime buses to Hastings and Rye Harbour, as well as the Hams relief bus, will have to find their way past the current bottleneck in Rye which is expected to be for a much shorter period.
A regular user of the bottleneck is Rye’s 326 mini-bus service and driver/manager Pat Hughes said delays this week had not been too much of a problem, though Friday last week (October 2) had been a bit of a nightmare.
Image Credits: Nick Forman .