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Daily Mirror
Daily Mirror
National
George Bunn & Ryan Merrifield

Mum furious after police knock on her door at 12.30am asking her to move car for roadworks

A policeman knocked on a new mum's door after midnight just to ask her to move her car.

Bethan Rose has a seven-month-old baby and was stunned when the officer woke them both up for such a trivial reason at 12.30am.

The 29-year-old lives with partner Andrew Nicholls and daughter Beatrix.

Their road in Blythe Bridge, Stoke-on-Trent, is currently being used a diversionary route for overnight traffic with the nearby A50 shut for roadworks.

Cadent - which is behind the works - is adamant it would never tell police to get residents to move their cars at such an hour.

Staffordshire Police has not yet responded.

Roadworks at the Draycott roundabout on the A50 near Blythe Bridge (Pete Stonier / Stoke Sentinel)

Royal Stoke University Hospital nursing assistant Bethan StokeonTrentLive: "With the weather being hot, I had parked outside my house which is quite rare. We don't use our front room, I live in the middle room with the baby, so I didn't go outside.

"Obviously, I go to bed with the baby and I could hear all the traffic outside, that was at about 11pm.

"I could then hear banging on my door and thought 'oh God, what's going on' because I knew it was the early hours. I checked the phone and it was about 12.30am.

"There was a policeman at the door. Obviously, that woke the baby up.

"I was in shock because I didn't know why the policeman was at the door. So I went downstairs and managed to get outside because the policeman had gone.

"I went up the road to him and he said it was to move my car. I said we'd had no notification and the cones hadn't been there when I parked.

"The whole street was still lined with cars. I went and moved my car, but if I had been on my own and my partner had been on nights I wouldn't have been able to do that."

Bethan has been left appalled by the situation.

She added: "For the whole night, even when the cars were slowly being moved, people were being woken up, the traffic was just horrific. I was awake all night.

"To be fair, the policeman was lovely but I can't believe they were waking us up at that time asking us to move. I went out in my dressing gown, It was just awful.

"It has been constant and with having a young baby it's just not an ideal place to live.

"We have contacted Cadent for clarification but for now we will still look elsewhere because it has just been a nightmare and we love this house but the parking and commotion at night are just awful."

Cadent started its roadworks last Monday.

A spokesperson said: "This will see us invest over £500,000 to upgrade the gas network in Staffordshire. As part of this, we will be replacing the existing, ageing, steel gas pipe to a more durable plastic pipe that will supply energy to tens of thousands of homes and businesses in the area.

"We have worked closely with the local council and National Highways to design a traffic management system that will support these vital works and began informing residents of our plans before activity started, placing cones in the areas that residents needed to avoid and providing alternative parking.

"It’s a big but vital project and we’re trying to work as quickly and as safely as possible to limit the disruption to the community. We want to thank everyone for their patience whilst we complete these important works.”

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