A parish councillor has criticised the state of the roads in Westmorland and Furness – labelling the longevity of repairs ‘sub-standard’.
Chair of Lakes Parish Council councillor Andy Biggs spoke at a meeting of Westmorland and Furness council’s cabinet to ask for help and input to address issues relating to the maintenance of highways.
Cllr Biggs said: “Residents are required to pass an annual MOT to make sure their cars are roadworthy; however, residents are not convinced the roads are worthy.”
He raised issues relating to preventative works, longevity of repairs, communication, parking enforcement, potholes and erroneous reporting.
Cllr Biggs said: “Roads flood in the same place each and every year. Why is more not done to clean out the culverts and drains.”
On the longevity of repairs Cllr Biggs added they were ‘sub-standard’ and told the cabinet that potholes form within days or weeks.
He also told the cabinet of parking enforcement issues in the Lake District and said areas of Lakes Parish, Ambleside and Troutbeck were ‘plagued by abandoned vehicles’.
Cllr Biggs added: “We have asked for additional enforcement into the evenings as well. Why can you not have more officers to enforce parking problems.”
In response, the leader of the council councillor Jonathan Brook thanked Cllr Biggs for coming to the meeting and said the council had noted his comments.
He said: “It’s important that we recognise the context of the winter we’ve just experienced in Westmorland and Furness. We’ve had an unprecedented winter of storms, we’ve had 11 named storms which our highways teams have had to respond to, these are the same staff who are also required to carry out repairs to our highways.”
“Council officers inspect the highways network on a daily basis, and they identify and risk rate defects for repair and the aim of the service is to carry out permanent patching of potholes and the council is using national best practice, deploying thermal and jet patching to support our teams in carrying out highways repairs.
“Since the start of March our teams have carried out considerably more pothole repairs than the number reported so therefore, they are catching up with the backlog.
“Unfortunately, there are instances where temporary repairs need to be carried out to make the highways safe however the intention is then to carry out more permanent repairs in due course.”
Cllr Brook also told cabinet there had been over 30,000 reports onto the council’s highways reporting system. He said: “The system works successfully but clearly isn’t perfect and the council continues to work to improve and develop that system.
“As a new council Westmorland and Furness is committed to working with town and parish councils and developing and deepening that relationship and our responsiveness.”
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