Mark Cooper on Roads, Speed Limits and Dreaded Potholes!

Knatchbull Close Parking Problems
The total lack of action by the various authorities to sort out the unsatisfactory parking situation in Knatchbull Close is of great concern to me. I have again written to the Hampshire Constabulary to get some action on the matter. My email to the current Romsey Inspector and Sergeant is copied below for your information. Similar action from your good selves may help to get a response.

Potholes and Puddles - 27th February 2009

About 85% of my Hampshire County Council County casework is Highways and about 65% of that is puddles and highway drainage issues. They take ages to sort out and as soon as I get some of them repaired, new ones appear.

I’ve had Church Street, part of Winchester Road and Botley Road up to the top of Cemetery Hill reconstructed recently but the small areas of good work only serve to show up the rest of the crumbling surfaces. Fishlake Meadows is a case in point. At least the County Council has given an undertaking that this road will be re-built in the coming financial year.

I have one email stream no pun intended where it took 11 (eleven) emails to get a pavement puddle seen to by Hampshire Highways West. So what’s gone wrong with our roads and pavements?

1 According to the Audit Commission HCC ranks 28th out of 34 Counties for highways spend per head and 34th out of 34 for footpath maintenance. Think about that. We have the lowest spend per head of any United Kingdom County Council on pavement repairs. So lack of resources is an issue. Thus, there is a lack of routine maintenance such as re-sealing tarmac surfaces, and there seems to be no cyclic drain maintenance. Whenever I or a constituent complain of a blocked drain it is eventually cleared but its reactive maintenance not proactive.

When I ask the County Council Leader for more Highways resources is answer is: "What to you want me to cut instead; Adult Social Care or Children’s Services?”....I can't win that argument.

2 The County Highway officers seem to be few in number for the volume of work that needs to be done and are often trying to keep up with routine work before they can start on re-acting to County Councillor and public priorities complaints.

3 All the reported matters go into a list...then the list is prioritised for urgency ...of course, safety issues come top, so other issues, such as puddles never get to the top of the pile. I suppose the excuse is that it only rains for 7% of the time...or so an old hydrology textbook of mine tells me.

4 Amey is the company that has a long term contract for Hampshire Highway maintenance - won in a bidding process. How does any Contractor make his profit? By doing the work as quickly and cheaply as possible. No comment!

5 If County officers were less busy they’d have more time to supervise the work done by the contractor ...sometimes the repairs 'look good' but when it rains it is found the water can't access drain covers.

6 To get roads and paths to drain correctly can involve some very expensive re-leveling...I refer you back to problem number one. Money.

7 Because of (i) the lack routine cyclic maintenance (ii) the increase in heavy lorry traffic, (iii) the wetter than average sequence of months recently (iv) the coldest, frostiest winter for 10 years … suddenly all the faults that were gradually building up have been 'found out'.

But I’m not giving up… if you spot a new pothole or are concerned by yet another new street corner flood, let me know, the best way is by email, and I’ll email the Hampshire Highways West officers with a request that the work be done. But remember: it can take up to 11 emails to get the work done!

POSTSCRIPT. At the next Romsey Forum, 7.30 11th March 2009 at the Town Hall, Mr Dave Irving, the Manager of Hampshire Highways West is coming to speak to the town and answer questions. Every Romsey resident belongs to the Forum, some come along and ask him about Romsey’s Roads and Pavements yourselves.

Fishlake Meadows problem; is there a case for legal action? - 16th February 2009

Romsey's County Councillor, Mark Cooper has written to the Hampshire County Council's Cabinet member for the Environment, Mel Kendal, to thank him for including Fishlake Meadows in the 2009 - 2010 reconstruction programme.

"I have walked and driven Fishlake Meadows many times it is apparent that the inclusion of this road's much needed re-construction in the 2009-10 programme is timely and I thanked the Cabinet member for providing the funding to do the work", he says.

However Cllr Cooper believes there are some issues that still need to resolved.

"I have had a number of concerns expressed to me about the traffic speeds along this road. It is a 30mph area but doesn't look like it. I would be grateful if traffic calming was built into the 'reconstruction'. Two cost effective methods come to mind; firstly, gateway techniques such as that found just north of Timsbury which I believe is very effective and secondly white line narrowing along the carriageway edge which also appears to effective"

"Additionally, some local people are asking for cycle lanes to be marked out. There should be room to achieve it perhaps instead of the white carriageway edge lines.20The matter should be investigated".

"I have also asked the Cabinet member to investigate whether or not this is any legal redress against the original contractor. It is a concern that what is a relatively modern road first constructed in the 1980’s and then surfaced some years later should be so much in need of urgent, major, remedial action. We need to establish what has gone wrong here so that it doesn't happen again", he says.

"Was the original specification adequate for just an estate road and therefore inadequate for what is in effect the Town’s northern by-pass, or is there fault with the work and the supervision of that work by the original contractors? If this is the case, is there appropriate legal action the County Council can take to compensate for the costs of the re-construction?"

“Fishlake Meadows Road Disintegrates”, says County Councillor Mark Cooper - 12th February 2009

Last summer one of the main locations residents were complaining about in relation to the quality of the road surface was Fishlake Meadows. The recent wet weather and frosts have made matters much worse. The County Council Highways Authority needs to do much more than to throw a spade of tarmac at the problem.

Following a plethora of complaints - and emails from me, Hampshire Highways West has now said that a complete reconstruction of Fishlake Meadows is in the programme for the financial year 2009 -10.

But having been down to inspect the road this morning (Wednesday 11th February) I found one pothole 6" deep and several feet long as well as an almost continuous break up of the top tarmac layer leaving drifts of loose stones strewn across the whole width of the road...it is very dangerous. Following an urgent 'phone call to HHW it has been agreed there will be some rapid emergency, temporary repairs to the most dangerous potholes.
 
It strikes me that the road must have been 'underspecified' when it was built. It now acts as a northern bypass for the town and simply is unable to withstand the traffic volumes. Residents brought this road's condition to my notice last year and some temporary patching was done then. The combination of heavy rainfall and recent frosts has led to the complete failure of the road surface. It’s in an appalling mess. The programmed reconstruction for the next financial year is urgently needed before there is a major incident on this road.

In the meantime, I hope everyone uses the road with extreme caution and stays within the speed limit. Motorcyclists and cyclists are especially at risk.

Drain Covers Drive Residents to Distraction - 21st January 2009

Repairing drain covers might be presumed to be routine maintenance and not a very urgent issue. That's unless you live near one that makes a loud clanging noise when any vehicle drives over it. On a busy road such as Alma Road and the A3057 corridor through Romsey the constant noise is extremely disturbing to local residents especially at night.

Last week three cacophonous drains were repaired at the Duttons Road - Greatbridge Road junction, at the Station Road - Alma Road junction and the southern end of Alma Road.

"The problem is partly the chain of instructions", says County Councillor Mark Cooper. "Residents complain to me; I then report the matter to Hampshire Highways, who then report it to the drain cover owner, in this case Southern Water, and then Southern Water reports it on to their repair contractors. The process can take weeks which doesn't help the sleep patterns of my residents".

"This last time I told Hampshire I would cone the road off myself to prevent the noise nuisance. The drain covers were repaired within days!"