Introduction

Class 4 have been looking into the closure of the A46 and how it has affected the Whiteshill and Painswick residents.  They interviewed Mr Kempner, their Head Teacher and Philip Booth, a spokesperson for the District Council.

They also did some homework inverviewing someone that they knew and most people collected some interesting information.

By  Ewan

How the A46 closure has affected Class 4

Class 4 has been talking about how the A46 closure has affected us.  Some people have to get up earlier just to get to school, and if they go down to the Village Shop, or park, it is very dangerous to cross the road unless the School Crossing Patrol person is there to cross them over.  Some drivers like to go fast down Main Road, which is busy, and when it's the end of school and children are crossing to go home they feel they could get run over by the drivers.

Interviewing Mr Kempner

Class 4 interviewed Mr Kempner on how the closure of the A46 has affected him as a Head Teacher.

Fynn asked, "Has the closure of the A46 made your job more stressful?" and Mr Kempner confirmed that it had.

Nicola asked, "When you're crossing people over the road do you get scared that you will get run over?

Mr Kempner replied, "Yes, but you get trained to cross people over the road."

Hannah asked, "Do you think more local people have started walking?"

"Yes, I think more people have started walking." replied Mr Kempner.

We would like to say a big thanks to Mr Kempner for being interviewed.

 The A46 closure

The reason why the sliding of the A46 happened was that water interacted with the sands and soil to cause a land slide therefore making the foundations collapse. To help prevent the sliding again the council have placed a wall under the surface to keep the bank up. The tube (wall) is around 18ft in length. Then they put steel bars inside to strengthen it and poured concrete into the wall.  

This whole project has cost £750,000. The company that has supplied the concrete is EMVEX.

We think that the people will be pleased with the work that they have been doing, and that it will be finished in time.

By Ben  (Y6) and Felix  (Y5)

On Monday 21^st of January 2008 Philip Booth, who is a District councillor for Whiteshill, Ruscombe and Randwick , came in to Class 4 to talk about the A46 closure and how it has affected him and the local people.

We asked Mr Booth how long he thought the A46 would be closed for? He replied, “It was meant to take 6 months, but it has taken a bit longer.” He went on to say that the road was due to open on February 15^th .We also asked him whether the road closure had made his job more stressful?  He answered, “No it hasn’t made my job more stressful, but there’s been a lot more phone calls and letters”.  He also said that because there’s more traffic, people didn’t seem to care about any one else but themselves.  People have been driving a lot faster and during a recent survey he had found 63 cars that were going over the speed limit. So Mr Booth thought that we need to find a way to slow cars down and make the drivers more caring for the villages. Philip booth said we should make drivers go the diversion way.

By Emily & Cordelia