LATEST ROAD UPDATE - ONE DIVERSION ENDS, ANOTHER STARTS!

The diversion which has closed the road from Horsted Keynes to Lindfield was withdrawn a few days early at lunchtime on Tuesday February 5th. It's all change next week as another 5 weeks of disruption starts when the road from Horsted Keynes to Forest Row is closed! The reason? Yet more "drainage works".

GERALD'S BRIDGE + LOCAL ROAD CLOSURE = 5 WEEKS DISRUPTION

Keysford Lane, Horsted Keynes has now closed so that West Sussex Highways can sort out the flooding that regularly occurs on the bend beside Medhurst Farm. The plan is to maintain the closure for 5 weeks.

Because of the low bridge beside Horsted Keynes station the posted diversion is almost 4 miles long! This not only affects local motorists but also those travelling by Service and School busses. Some of the diversion roads are narrow, VERY narrow indeed. For example the top end of Sugar Lane is too narrow for lorries and has sharp blind bends and further along the same road is a bridge that is only a single lane wide. Then beside Lindfield Golf Club are notorious narrow bends. We hope that we are wrong, but we can see more accidents looming.

We at HorstedKeynes.Com will try to keep you advised of further updates to the diversions and developments as soon as we receive the details.

7 Jan: Everything is backwards! We are yet to find any mention of these revised arrangements on the Metro Bus web site but if you normally catch the Horsted Keynes 270 bus in Lindfield you will find that your journey now starts on the opposite side of the road to normal! So for now you should wait beside the Stand Up Inn to travel both ways!

7 Jan: The Oathall School bus now takes rather longer to get to school and may be expected to leave tightly on time - better get the kids up a little earlier if you don't want to have to drive them in to school, and for the next few weeks expect them to be home a bit later than usual.

10 Jan W.S.C.C.  moved some of the diversion signs this afternoon. Doesn't make any difference as they STILL point you in the wrong direction up Ardingly Road to get to Horsted Keynes when they really should be pointing down the road! If you follow the signs you just end up at a sign that says "Diversion END", not much help when you are trying to find Horsted Keynes or the Bluebell Railway. What is needed is specially made signs pointing the way to Horsted Keynes, simple!

Now, if you don't know our area the following note is very important as the diversion signs are plain and simply wrong! Let's say that you are travelling to the Bluebell Railway towards Horsted Keynes from Lindfield. The first that you will see of the diversion is a sign beside Paxhill Park and then a "Diversion" sign pointing up the hill towards Horsted Keynes. So far so good, except this diversion sign is pointing in the wrong direction!! You see to get to Horsted Keynes you actually have to turn round and travel in the opposite direction away from H.K. back through Lindfield where you turn off and go around three sides of the circle along the diversion!*

* We are well aware that circles don't have sides. ;-)

For West Sussex Highways the Consulting Engineer is John Cunningham who can be contacted at 01243 642105 and the on site representative is Richard Finn - 01798 872555. highways.northern@westsussex.gov.uk

NOW LOCAL DELIVERIES ARE BEING DELAYED

We have been told that several villagers have failed to receive expected deliveries today. At the moment we are not sure which firm it is who have failed to deliver but the items were "catalogue" goods and the suggestion is that the driver either missed the diversion or didn't have the time to follow it. The poorly signed diversion is starting to impact on villagers, and we expect problems to get worse at the weekend when Bluebell visitors try to get to the village and station.

It's all down to the poor signage which points drivers to the southern end of Keysford Lane (the junctions of Keysford and Stonecross Lanes) instead of Horsted Keynes village proper. West Sussex District Council don't seem to understand that not many people want to go to a road junction with a single house, they'd prefer to go to Horsted Keynes village! Whilst the diversion signs are strictly correct they are ambiguous because they don't explain that drivers need to go AWAY from our village on a circular course to get there!

We have heard of several people joining the circular diversion at Lindfield then finding then themselves taken to "Nowhere" (the above Keysford/Stonecross junction) instead of H.K. because they drove clockwise instead of anti-clockwise. Let's face it if the diversion route is bad, the signs are terrible!

It's all due to W.S.C.C. using generic diversion signs which don't say where they are diverting people to! The signs should really say "Horsted Keynes" instead of the single word "Diversion" which could be anywhere! On some roads there are signs pointing two ways at once!

Here is a Google map of the area. Please note as stated above there is a very low narrow bridge beside Horsted Keynes station which is only 8' high so is impassable for busses, lorries and trucks. If you go that way and get stuck you will have great difficulty turning round on the road which is little wider than a track in places. This explains the very long recommended diversion which avoids this bridge. There is a "cut through" beside Paxhill Park but this is an extremely narrow track with high hedges and tight 90º bends.

Closed Road
Recommended Diversion
Alternative for SMALL NARROW cars only!

Our live webcam picture of the Horsted Keynes end of the diversion. Only visible in daylight.

We have been in correspondence with West Sussex Highways about the proposed diversion route. Basically some of you are worried that the top end of Sugar Lane is so narrow that there is an accident waiting to happen on the blind bends. Another writer says that she is worried about school children walking round the blind bends.

A reply has been received which shows that they are aware of the problem and are considering putting up some warning signs (which is a start at least!). We will report more when we have a full reply.