FRUSTRATION has been growing among a number of people at Tedburn St Mary at the Highway Agency’s apparent lack of commitment to alleviating villagers’ problems with noise from the A30 traffic after trees were cut down last year.

An action group, NAAG (Noise Abatement Action Group) was formed last winter, putting Tedburn’s case to the Highways Agency with the result that Marcus Anning, its Asset Needs Manager (SW), went to a NAAG meeting in February.

He said he hoped he had assured Tedburn that the Highways Agency was sorry for the impact its work has had on local people and that this would be mitigated “as soon as possible”.

However, it seemed that the high hopes have been dashed. On April 12,  NAAG chairman, James Gibbs, wrote to NAAG members about “the case of the missing Highway Works”.

He said they had been told the work of putting up fencing panels and planting would be finished by Easter and that the contractor had definitely said this would be so.

However, replanting was done at Ide where there had been similar problems, so Tedburn wondered if the contractor had got confused.

James received another apology from Marcus Anning who promised to tell James when the work would actually take place.

As well as putting up 1.8m woven fence panels in places, the replanting would include three staggered rows with the inside and outside rows being field maple, hazel, hawthorn, holly, honeysuckle, cherry laurel and dog rose, with the middle being almond willow alternated with Scots Pine.

But over Easter it was found that only a few woven willow panels had been put up along the Exeter-bound side of the road near Tedburn, doing nothing to lessen traffic noise for nearby homes.