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Sutton Coldfield, it seems, is surrounded by a ring of steel. Steel barriers and traffic lights that is. It was bad enough in May, when we were still under lockdown restrictions, but the mayhem just goes on.

There has been not let up and it has got even worse, farcical in some areas, as the school summer holidays seemed to be a a trigger for even more diggers.

Easing lockdown has meant more people are back at work which in turn means more and more people are on the road.

From Maney Corner /Birmingham Road roadworks through to resurfacing pavements on Lichfield Road and work on the island at London Road there has been traffic chaos for months.

There were more traffic lights at Mere Green while the Lidl supermarket was being completed and resurfacing still onongoing at Slade Road, Four Oaks on the way to Bassetts Pole. That seems to have been going on forever.

To make matters worse, both Anchorage Road was closed off for resurfacing at the same time as work started on the corner of Little Sutton Lane causing with a three-way lights system, causing mayhem on routes into and out of the town centre.

This was in addition to a one way system past the police and fire stations being in place between rush hour periods for resurfacing.

 To compound this a three-way set of traffic lights at the junction of Hollyfield Road and Reddicap was causing severe tailbacks, with all of these routes potentially affecting emergency services from Good Hope Hospital.

It is to be hoped that planners can get their act together as this is exactly the kind of chaos that hits business hard, just as they are starting to recover from the Covid lockdown.

Let’s not forget either the potential for more chaos when work on the giant Peddimore estate gets under way.