Last July we launched a campaign in Redlands to get some pot hole ridden streets resurfaced after Redlands was overlooked again by the Council's highways department.
Glenn, Kirsten and I have been regularly reporting pot holes across the ward, such as Donnington Road (pictured) and the situation is getting better not worse.This year once again the Council has failed to programme in overdue repairs for our area so our campaign continues. We are collecting signatures for our petition to get the following roads attended to by the highways team as a priority: Blenheim Road, Carnarvon Road, De Beauvoir Road, Donnington Gardens, Hatherley Road, Hexham Road.
We have however succeeded in getting Malvern Court resurfaced as part of the Council's resurfacing scheme 2009/10, which is much needed. It is unacceptable in my view that this is the only residential street in the ward getting attention when we know there are lots of others where the road surface is making life difficult for drivers and cyclists.
London Road is the only 'major' road being resurfaced in Redlands during the next financial year.
Last October I asked the then Labour Lead Member for Transport how long residents would have to wait to see improvements and he fobbed me off with the usual non-response.
We are aware that many pavements are also in a poor state in many parts of Redlands which makes life difficult for pedestrians, particularly the elderly and disabled. Please let us know if the road surface in your area is a problem and we will raise it with officers.
In Stockport, the Lib Dem controlled Council recently awarded 4* by inspectors, has introduced the 'Pot Hole Mole' Service. This team responds proactively to calls from members of the public about pot holes and other road surface issues. Roads are patched up with a special material which is a lot cheaper than tarmacing the whole road. The service is cheap, efficient and highly popular with local people. The Council has a similar service for tackling faulty streetlights.
We will be pressing for something like this to be introduced in Reading.
In general, it is clear that highways works are not funded adequately by the Department for Transport. Under Labour, the DfT has focussed on large-scale road-building schemes in favour of funding sustainable transport solutions. Campaign website RoadRage contains details of all the schemes here.
RBC will receive £1.3 million for highway maintenance works for the next financial year which covers £625k for carriageway resurfacing, £100k for 'micro asphalt' surfacing (patching up potholes etc) and £300k for footway resurfacing. The rest goes on bridge maintenance (£300k), road assessment surveys (£25,220) and streetl ighting (£200k).
This only pays for 5 minor roads and 7 major roads across the entire Borough to be completely resurfaced.
If you want to see if your road is one of the lucky few set to benefit you can download the list (due to be rubber-stamped at the Transport Management Panel tomorrow evening) here.
Most of the transport funding in Reading goes towards the Council's ambitious Capital Programme.
This programme was recently identified as a serious risk by the Council's external auditors KPMG:
'The challenges in managing and funding multiple large-scale capital projects (e.g. J11/M4 redevelopment, Civic Offices replacement), particularly in the current economic climate (where the level of capital receipts and developers’ contributions are declining)'
The Labour administration has long been obsessed by expensive vanity projects such as the deeply unpopular One Way IDR scheme (which was expected to cost a minimum of £14.4 million pounds).
In typical Labour fashion an apology was only made after the Lib Dems forced the administration into making one.
Most local residents I speak to regularly would like to see the Council improving streets in the Borough first before embarking on more expensive government-led transport schemes.
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