Posted on Friday 6th December 2024
Staffordshire’s highways teams worked hard through the night last night to deal with fallen trees following strong wind – and are ready to respond again over the weekend.
The Newcastle area was hardest hit, particularly Kidsgrove, with trees coming down in First Avenue and Boathorse Road which were both closed. There are still 12 trees down in the area which the county council and Newcastle-under-Lyme Borough Council teams are working to remove this morning.
In South Staffordshire, Stafford Lane in Codsall had to be closed due to fallen trees and the team there is working to get the road open again later today.
Two trees were removed in Stone without any significant impact to the roads while in Lichfield a temporary traffic light was installed on the A51 at Longdon Green due to flooding.
Teams will be ready to respond to Storm Darragh overnight and through the weekend, with more high winds and heavy rain forecast. A Yellow weather warning for wind is in place across Staffordshire.
People are again being reminded to check their local forecast and only travel if absolutely necessary during the worst of the weather.
They can report incidents on the roads via the county council’s Report It webpage
Staffordshire County Council’s cabinet member for strategic highways Mark Deaville said:
The first of the forecast high winds and rain hit the county last night and our teams worked through the night and did a fantastic job in responding to incidents and ensuring our roads were made safe.
They’re ready to act again over the weekend when the worst of the forecast storm weather is expected. We’d again ask people to take extra care and only travel if necessary.
There are likely to be trees down across the county and potentially flooding on the roads. People can report incidents on our Report It webpage but we’d ask them to be understanding as our teams are likely to be very busy.”
People can sign up to receive flood alerts in their area on the government webpage.