None of the roads in Bradley Stoke warrant being considered for repair, according to a report presented to last week’s meeting of the Southern Brooks Area Forum.
Councillors on the Forum, which covers Bradley Stoke, Filton, Frenchay, Stoke Park, Patchway, Stoke Gifford and Winterbourne, were given £60,000 to allocate to highway maintenance schemes in the area and they were asked to choose from a list of 43 candidate schemes, prioritised according to a scoring system devised by South Gloucestershire Council’s engineers.
But with not a single Bradley Stoke road appearing on the list, our five District Councillors were left to weigh up the needs of our neighbouring parishes.
On the grounds that a lack of local interest made him “impartial”, Bradley Stoke South Cllr John Ashe had taken it upon himself to draw up a suggested list of seven schemes prior to the meeting and, in contrast to previous meetings of the Area Forum where the different political groups have talked down schemes in parishes governed by their opponents, agreement on Cllr Ashe’s proposal was reached relatively quickly.
The outcome was that three roads (one in each of Filton, Winterbourne and Frenchay) are to be resurfaced and four sections of pavement (one in Filton and three in Stoke Gifford) will be reconstructed or resurfaced during 2013/14.
Patchway, despite having three schemes on the list, missed out – justified on the grounds that a Patchway road had been selected for resurfacing at the Area Forum’s September meeting.
A highways engineer present at the meeting explained that South Gloucestershire Council has a budget of around £2.5 million to maintain 1,500km of roads in the district. Pointing out that a single scheme (resurfacing part of the A38 in Patchway) had consumed £0.5 million of this year’s budget, he admitted: “We really haven’t got enough money”.
Records on the SGC website show that none of the Council’s central highway maintenance budget was allocated to Bradley Stoke for 2011/12 or 2012/13.
More info and related links:
South Glos highways engineers have clearly not recently examined the lower stretch of Brook Way from the Baileys Court Road roundabout up to Christ the King church. Plenty of potholes – very dangerous for cyclists. Will only get worse over the winter if nothing is done.
Thanks for the pot hole reporting link. I just reported the latest (in a long line) of pot holes to appear on Brook way between Braydon avenue and Bailey Court Road. Given that they’re always by the road humps that must be what is causing them.
As i swerve to avoid the the sunken manholes and lurch up and down over the speed humps all along Baileys Court I thought of a good idea…. Why don’t we make it a tourist atraction (in the same way as Rabbit Roundabout) turn it into a toll road and charge people to travel this rollercoaster road as its just like a ride at Alton Towers. Infact its so realistic I feel a a little queasy as a comlpte the experince. So what should we do with the money we make on this little scheme…. well dig a few more holes and install even more speed humps, paint the road with as many colours as you can think off, convert roads into cycle paths and cycle paths into roads…. Oh I forgot … plant roudabouts with flowers for Bradley Stoke in Bloom as this scheme has money to squander on more pointless things. I’m sure we can also find a use for the boulders which have been placed along Bailey Court road… Perhaps they should be used to fill the holes when we have had enough of the bumpety, humpety bumpety metallic clunk.
I always thought our roads were poor, until I went to Canada this year. Their Highways are horrendously potholed and the minor roads even worse, many of them aren’t even tarmacked . Yes some of our roads are really poor, but if we want them fixed, we will have to pay higher road tax or council tax, and I bet if they are raised more then there will be lots more complaints!
Not sure how valid a comparison with Canada really is, they enjoy extremes of weather which really take their toll on a road and the sheer size of the country means it’s not feasible to Tarmac every road.
But back here in Britain, the Government take about £45 billion (that’s 45,000 million pounds) every year from motorists from vehicle excise duty, fuel levy, VAT, insurance premium tax etc. And how much do they reinvest into the road infrastructure? About 10%
So we don’t need to be taxed any more to pay for pothole repair activities, there is already plenty of money although it seems to be liberally sprayed around on vanity schemes such as raised tables, the removal/reinstall of speed bumps on Brook Way, totally unnecessary traffic lights at every junction and other forms of wasted expenditure.
Just think, we give £50 million each day to the wasteful money pit that is the EU. That’s a lot of pot holes…..
Flurfy Chicken, is right if we want more we need to pay more I suspose, as Taxation linked to roads and vehicles has been diverted away from roads for years, all UK Governments what ever the colour just see the road user as a cash cow to get more money from.
But thank you news desk for the pothole link. Have made use of it.
Oh and well done for 10/10 from Google.
No.1 son just damaged his wheel on a pothole in Orpheus Avenue. how do you claim from South Gloucestershire Council?
Apparently its nearly elbow deep.
K, try this link
http://www.potholes.co.uk/claims/how_to_claim