James Metcalf, an operations manager at a Spalding taxi firm, says customers waited up to three hours on Friday 9 October after a fault at the Park Road level crossing piled onto roadworks already running through the town. Some missed appointments. He has not named the firm.
He said his own two-and-a-half-mile trip home took more than an hour. It usually takes five to fifteen minutes. Drivers on commission earn nothing while they are stuck, he said, and he could not get a car to an elderly customer waiting at Sainsbury's.
The works underneath
Lincolnshire County Council is building cycleways and footways between Spalding and Pinchbeck. The scheme costs £1.8 million, from Active Travel England funding awarded in May 2022. Construction started in June 2026. The council's date for finishing is winter 2026, and it says that date can move.
Metcalf said too many roads are shut at once. He asked why the stretch from the top of West Elloe to Kings Road was not finished before Park Road and Woolram Wygate were closed. He said a journey time can no longer be predicted, which is how a taxi firm has to work.
On 2 October, before the crossing failed, the council's traffic manager, Ashley Behan, told councillors that more crews should have been put on the job earlier. He said four teams were then at work, the scheme was on schedule, and the money was not from the council's own budget. A four-month closure of Enterprise Way had been lifted.
TaxiFeed has already reported the effect of these works on local drivers, on 15 September and 18 September.