The contractor for these works has shared the below with the Parish Council. Any queries should be directed towards SGN on the email or phone number detailed below –
Essential gas main replacement work – North Street Midhurst
From Tuesday 22 July for a duration of six weeks, SGN specialist contractors I&G Contractors Limited will be carrying out critical reconnection work of the gas main on North Street in Midhurst.
These reconnection works are required due the disconnection of the gas network following the fire at the Angel Hotel. The network now needs to be reconnected before September to support the increased demand for gas in the networks and ensure we don’t lose gas supplies to the community.
Due to the location of the work in the road, for everyone’s safety, we’ll need to have the following traffic management in place.
Two-way temporary traffic lights – located on North Street around our work area.
Parking bay suspensions – in addition to the above, we will need to have parking bay suspensions on North Street directly opposite the hotel and work area.
To help minimise disruption and ensure we maintain traffic flow on North Street, we will have the traffic lights manned from 7am to 7pm seven days a week. We will monitor the traffic flow and manually control sequencing where required.
We understand the disruption works on North Street will have on the community, we appreciate you may have some questions regarding the work, please see below a Q&A that may provide answers to your questions.
If you would like to speak to the team about these works, please email our customer service team Customer@SGN.co.uk or call them on 0800 912 1700 they will redirect your enquiry one of the team for response.
We’re sorry for any inconvenience caused by these works and temporary traffic lights, please can we reassure you the team will be doing all they can to complete these works as safely and as quickly as possible.
Q1: Why are these works necessary now?
For public safety, our emergency engineers were called out to urgently disconnect the gas network outside the Angel Hotel at the time of the fire two years ago.
To maintain local supplies until now, our network asset team have re-directed the gas flow around the surrounding gas network, manipulating pressures to maintain constant supply.
This will no longer be a viable alternative once autumn arrives and the demand for gas increases. Therefore, this part of our network needs to be reconnected before September.
Q2: What are the risks from not doing our reconnection?
If the network isn’t reconnected, there is significant risk of losing gas supplies to Midhurst and in the wider area, this includes the college and the Riverbank Surgery. This would be extremely disruptive with all affected properties off gas for some time.
Q3: Why haven’t these works been conducted sooner?
Until now, access to our network hasn’t been possible for safety reasons. We also need to divert the gas main into the carriageway. In addition, we are governed by road space availability from the local authority.
Q4: You have delayed for six weeks, why can’t you delay further until our busy summer period is over?
We are guided by our experts in the network team, who monitor the gas network, pressures and demands within the gas network. They are advising the risk is too great to delay works any further.
Q5: Why is thirty metres of work taking six weeks to complete?
We are re-directing a short section of approximately thirty metres of gas main into the road to avoid the unsafe building structure. Excavating next to the hotel may further compromise the building. There is significant work involved in conducting this re-direction.
Q6: Will this affect my gas supply?
There will be no planned interruption of local gas supplies while these works are being completed.
Q7: Why can’t your teams work 24hrs to complete this work sooner?
Working at night presents a health and safety issues and significant risk to our work force. We are working with live gas and need to avoid other critical infrastructure under the ground such as high voltage electrical cables and water mains.
Our engineers will be working extended hours to complete these works as quickly and as safely as they can. We have provided a six-week duration, however all going to plan we hope to complete the work sooner.
Q8: Why is there no-one on site working?
There may be times when there is limited visibility of engineers working on site – they may not be visible, but they will be working. There are significant engineering activities which require our engineers to work away from site; these may include checking pressures in the surrounding network, conducting safety checks within buildings or local side roads, or when the road surface is being reinstated.
