Humps and bumps of the county's roads

March 31 is the deadline given to the company to complete its work, which hasn't just affected Buckinghamshire.

The telecommunications company has been digging up roads, putting in ducts and installing fibre-optic cables in a loop round central England and from Cornwall to the capital, having previously brought the line across the Atlantic from the USA.

If letters to this newspaper are anything to go by, the work has not been appreciated but there was little County Hall could do. Cable and Wireless has a licence and can do more-or-less what it likes.

The work has caused headaches for Mike Knight the forthright environmental services manager at the county council's High Wycombe area office in Easton Street.

During the same period he has had to carry out extra work pumping flood water off roads, fill in potholes caused by the water and ice, take flak over roadworks and delays at Handy Cross and other works being carried out by statutory undertakers, such as Transco, and try and fit in his own programme of planned work.

Cable and Wireless and another company, TYCOM, came into the county from Henley at Marlow in November with up to a dozen gangs of local contractors digging up short stretches at a time and laying cable ducts.The work has been done in co-operation with Mr Knight's department and he has tried to ensure that any one gang is separated from an other by at least one mile.

From Henley to Marlow there was a joint trench shared by the two companies, which then split with the TYCOM trench going to Flackwell Heath and Wooburn Green. Originally TYCOM was going via Bourne End, but Mr Knight reckoned Bourne End had suffered enough so he got it diverted.

Meanwhile, Cable and Wireless went up Wycombe Road to Handy Cross where it clashed with the road works there and then wended its way down to Desborough Avenue, Desborough Road, Bridge Street, Oxford Road, Frogmoor, Hamilton Road, Green Road, Kingshill Road, Terriers, Amersham and Chesham.

The gangs were followed by a specialist team feeding in the cable from huge drums. All the cables should be in this week, though the company does have to come back and do what Mr Knight described as 'the gardening'.

This work conflicted with Mr Knight's own plans. For instance, a scheme to re-kerb and resurface Amersham Road in High Wycombe outside Equity and Law and a pelican crossing outside Safeways in High Wycombe, had to wait.

These delays have infuriated local people, who can't see why dates can't be adhered to.

Transco is another regular sight on the roads. The company has been in Frogmoor putting in new gas pipes demanded under health and safety rules. And they will be there again at the end of April for several weeks.

In Marlow, BT wants to put new cables in along the footways in Spittal Street. "That will cause mayhem," said Mr Knight.

There are 300 telecom companies who can come in and dig things up, having only to give 28 days notice to the county council which is the highways authority. Other organisations include gas, water and electricity. "It makes our lives an absolute mess," he said. There are also problems with the Highways Agency, which rules over trunk roads and motorways.

Mr Knight tries to programme his bits to fit in but it doesn't always work. Delays to Highways Agency work at Handy Cross and the M40 east, meant council work nearby coincided. People looking to avoid the M40 ran into his repairs and added to jams. Mr Knight's phone was red hot.

Finally there's the rain, which led to flooding and subsequent potholes when the surface water froze. Fortunately the weather wasn't that cold. If the ground had frozen deep down, the whole road structure would have been pushed up and Mr Knight's team would have had even more problems.

But even so he said: "We have had flooding since November. The worst winter I or anyone else can remember. We have been out gritting more than ever.

"The main problem has been the huge rise in the water table, leading to problems in areas which have never seen it before."

It's the chalk valleys: at Boss Lane, Hughenden; on the A4010 at Saunderton and Bradenham; in the Hambleden Valley; at Mill End on the Henley to Marlow road; and at Marlow, where the Pound Lane Estate, a site of old spring fed water gardens floods and floods again.

At Mill End, Cable and Wireless actually came to the rescue where part of the road was flooded and water poured constantly onto it, just where they needed to dig a trench. With the company's end-of-the-month deadline coming up, Cable and Wireless put in pipes for the council, got rid of the floods and resumed their own work.

Water has to be pumped off the roads as a priority and potholes filled in and this too led to delays on work scheduled elsewhere.

"There is so much going on and so few people in the industry. People are out there beavering away and there is not enough people to do the work," said Mr Knight.