Holey unacceptableBy the Editorial Team
In spite of their responsibility to ensure our roads are safe and well-maintained, our Council Members have clearly not kept their eyes on the ball and quite justifiably have come under considerable pressure to get the road system back into shape. Debate has flourished within County Hall as to the best way to tackle what has suddenly become a very hot topic, with some critics rumoured to consider the road issue a potential vote loser.
The response: a knee jerk ‘initiative’. A quick, expedient fix, patching and mending our roads, is understood by people who know about these things to be the most inefficient use of resource for road surfaces well past their use-by date. In fact reactive maintenance – and that is exactly what we are being offered – is ten times more expensive in the long run than having a proper resurfacing programme. Soon we won’t be able to see our parish roads for pothole repairs.
Are they bothered ?
Unfortunately, even after this ‘patch and mend’ exercise, great swathes of our parish roads will remain with a surface of dubious quality again left to deteriorate. Potter Row, one of our more important roads, has had to be
inspected every
seven days since the middle of April to check that it is still ‘safe’ and
six weeks on, as we go to press, still hasn’t been touched. For a road considered by the council
to be just on the right side of dangerous, that can’t be clever. Originally
it was scheduled to be closed for repairs and subsequently it was thought
that a phased single lane traffic light system may be enough, but all this
isn’t to resurface the road – just to re-fill potholes that have been filled
previously. And we all know what happens then. Within a few weeks they will
start degrading, maybe because it’s too hot, then after a couple of frosts
have hit them they will begin to lift, maybe because it’s too cold. And so
the merry-go-round continues.
| Buckinghamshire County Council Highway
Maintenance/Background: The overall objective for Highway Maintenance is to provide and maintain a safe means of movement on the highway network and to preserve the capital investment of the highway infrastructure. The management and improvement of the highway network is essential in facilitating the safe and efficient travel for all users . This should be done cost effectively and to achieve best value. Source: BCC website |
Let’s fill the council in
Despite the best efforts of The Lee Parish Council and our County Councillor, Tricia Birchley, who between them have on numerous occasions made representation to the Council’s Portfolio Holder and campaigned on our behalf at every opportunity, no proper resurfacing programme is envisaged. We must really try to help the county councillors join up their thinking in relation to the management of our roads and to ensure the money we pay towards our road maintenance is prudently and wisely spent on our behalf. So we are sending a copy of this Newsletter to Councillor Letheren at County Hall, who has overall responsibility for roads throughout Buckinghamshire, to ask why money wasn’t made available to resurface Potter Row properly if it’s considered to be so bad?
In addition why, if we have to accept a second rate fix, have our roads been allowed to degenerate into such a dreadful state of disrepair?
Your chance to have
a sayWe will publish the response if it is received in time for next month’s issue but if not, the Parish Council has shrewdly invited a member of the County Council Highways Department to its meeting in July for a question and answer session.
So, if you drive, ride, cycle or simply walk along our parish roads and have something to say about their appalling condition, come along to the Parish Hall on the 10th July at 7:30 pm. If you can’t make the date, write or email us here at the Newsletter and we will ensure your views are heard.
Hopefully we can all begin to make a real difference. Who knows, in the future we might even have our roads repaired properly before they become dangerous, not simply when the Council thinks it expedient.