I am a local business owner and I am frustrated because not only do we have to fight online buying and try to keep people buying local, but we now have to fight the local government for the right to keep our roads open so people can even get to our businesses.
We are located in the Alpine Centre on Kal Lake Road and there are 41 businesses in this complex now fighting with not only one road closure, but one on the other side now too. We fought to have certain acceptances to the first plan so we could keep our businesses open through this time and reduce the impact of the construction on our businesses as they were completely closing the main road into town. One aspect was that the road closure would only be on the north side of our entrance, not across the driveway (which it is).
We were then faced with a closure from the other side by District of Coldstream who has started a road construction project on the entrance to the south.
The wait for trucks and construction vehicles can be up to 20 minutes or more just to get into the complex, making staff late for work and patients late for appointments. It frustrates me to have taken the time to attend at least three council meetings about this project. It was supposed to be done last year but was postponed, and now has not met the timing requirements stated of the extended work hours that were supposed to reduce the length of the project.
Did anyone think about the impact of this other project being done at the same time and could it not have waited until the road to the north was open again? We will all struggle through this time and encourage customers to come but some forethought for the difficulty this has caused and the consequent burden this has put on everyone’s operations and livelihood would have been nice.
Kim Nasipayko