Lost in a maze of backroads.
On Sunday the 19th of July, my wife and I left the West Ayton site near Scarborough with our caravan, a Bailey Senator, to travel on the A170 towards the A1 on which we intended to travel over to the Lake District. We had been away from home for 2 weeks by this time on our 4 week summer holiday and West Ayton was our 4th site on the trip. (A very good site I might add). On approaching the area of Sproxton we were informed by signage that caravans were prohibited from travelling through Sutton Bank which we were ignorant of, but that there is a detour which we should follow. How many other people know this? We followed this detour through country lanes barely suitable for large caravans religiously following the detour signs. When we arrived in a small village called Ampleforth we were met with cones and barriers at a road closure sign right in the middle of the main street, and the information that it would be closed for the next 4 weeks! We had no option but to turn left down Station Road although there was no 'detour' indicating we should do this.
The next three quarters of an hour were a nightmare for all caravanners. We roamed across a very rural landscape of blind bends, tight narrow lanes and blind summits with little signage. Needless to say, the detour signs had dried up in the village. The AA road atlas was of little help showing a maze of criss-crossing unclassified roads until we were completely lost. We fortunately came across a group of men who were monitoring a bicycle race, and they gave us directions on how to reach the A19. We eventually came across it at a place called Carlton Husthwaite. If you know where this is, you will see just how lost we were. What annoys us so much is not the fact of the detour, but the fact that someone has made the decision to close a road that is part of a diversion, and never thought to create a new diversion, but left us (and how many others), to wander through a landscape we know nothing about and has almost no detail on a standard road map. We would be interested to hear other caravanners comments on this, as the experience left us very angry and frustrated. So much so that I e-mailed North Yorkshire Council and told them what I thought of there foresight in planning for road closures.
Comments
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Sutton Bank is a notorious no tow area and the CC warn about this when travelling to sites in the area. Not much fun when there are other road closures and it's quite a detour in the best of circumstances, most would turn off at Pickering or go via the A64 unless going north via other routes.
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This isn't a story as intended to be posted in this section and would be more appropriately posted in the main forum under Caravan and Motorhome Chat Section.
Unfortunately, we don't have the facility to move it so I'll leave it here for 48 hours and then it will be Deleted User.
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Don't think this should be Deleted User Jill... It's useful information wherever it appears... Better that some get to see it here than delete it all together...
Nick
The purpose of Jill posting what she did was to give the original poster the opportunity to post the information in the right place. It is doubtful that anyone wanting that sort of useful information will look in the Story ssection.
David
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Well.....excuse me, (slaps his wrist), I put it in a heading called 'Your stories', isn't that what it was? Can the knowledgeable ones please tell me where I should have put it?
Anyway, as a post script to 'my story', I got a reply from someone at North Yorkshire County Council, Ryedale & Selby Highways Customer Communications Officer no less, informing me that the signage was only supposed to be put up from Monday to Friday between
the hours of 8.30am and 4.30pm and that the weekend was clear. As I had travelled on Sunday I should have been OK. She said "a mindless individual had sabotaged the signage"! Does she mean a member of the public or their own workforce? She didn't explain where
we should go when coming across the signage during the week.0 -
Tattiehowker
Glad you have been so public sprited. The point about where anything should be posted really depends on who you wish to reach with what you have written. This is all useful information but it can get lost in this section and that is why Jill suggested that far more people would see it, and benefit from it, in the discussion area rather than here. Have you considered reposting?
David
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Ok thanks David. Iv'e copied and pasted my story in 'discussions' under 'UK Sites and Touring.'
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I have been trying to find a map showing the caravan detour for Sutton Bank with no success. I have Googled and searched the CC website. I even telephoned the CC but the lady I spoke to had not even heard of Sutton Bank and asked me if it was a caravan site.
Seems to me that untill the detour is actually maked on a map lots of people could have similar problems.0
