EXCLUSIVE

STREWTH mate! Is this the most important man in the borough at the moment?

For laid-back Aussie, Clinton Kirwin, from Queensland, sits in his LUX traffic van controlling the cars that go through one of the borough's busiest crossroads while work, which has caused major headaches for motorists, goes on "down under" the road.

The highway to Poynton has proved a long and tortuous route and Clinton has witnessed most of the chaos with his own Antipodean eyes. The National Grid have specifically placed the 29-year-old in charge of temporary lights at the junction of London Road and Chester Road, where he spends 12 hours a day monotonously flicking a switch to let traffic pass as smoothly as possible.

To make matter worse, lonely Clinton only has his radio for company as the workers digging up the street, only a matter of feet from him, have different bosses so don't mix with him.

"Because they work for a different company they don't come and talk to me," he said. "But I have Radio One and Chris Moyles to keep me entertained."

All that responsibility doesn't faze the ace switch flicker who was in charge of the London Road South lights before work on phase two ended there last week - even if people don't want to wish him "G'day!".

"I try to let eight cars through at a time to be fair," he said. "Things do get a bit hectic sometimes and you can miscount, which does leave people upset and they end up waving their hands at you."

Dad-of-one Clinton, who now lives in Bury, turns in for work at 7am and leaves at 7pm after sitting in the van all day - with his flask of tea and roll-ups to keep him going.

Thankfully, he can put the system on automatic when nature calls and make the short trip to one of Poynton's water holes.

Clinton is no stranger to the job as he started doing it two years ago and although "it can get a bit boring" he still really enjoys it.

The phase three gas mains work which started again yesterday (May 2) will last until July 21, but at least this time Clinton won't get as lonely as he will have a LUX van mate operating the opposite set of lights.

And if the weather stays nice they could always "throw a few shrimps on the barbie".