 | Potholes |
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Anna Waite - Snow and ice can be real problems in many ways and unfortunately they also leave behind some serious and long lasting problems for the highways dept- potholes.
Southend Conservative Cabinet has put extra funding into the highway’s budget for this year and throughout the Autumn and early Winter the Council has been repairing potholes and resurfacing lengths of the highway. Over £0.7m has been spent recently and indeed a new regime of pothole repair was put in place to make that money go further.
Anna Waite says ‘ There had been a very noticeable improvement in the highway surfacing but now we are looking at major pothole repairs. In view of this
- I have today requested that officers write formally to Government requesting contingency funding,
- I have asked our finance department for extra funding
- I have set up a pothole e-mail line on my website- www.seasidenews.net so that residents can report serious potholes directly to me and
- I have requested a better link on the council website too.
Clearly we do not have unlimited resources and cannot repair all the potholes immediately but we will give priority in respect of the location, depth and danger they present.
In some instances it appears that the potholes might have been caused by the patch work put in by the utilities breaking down along the joints and I have asked officers to investigate if we can claim for the repairs against the utility contractor.’
The Conservatives have also put extra funding into next year’s highway’s budget for improvements and capital projects. When the highway is in good condition it withstands the snow and ice far better so it is important that this funding can be used as intended to bring about long term improvements.
7th January 2010
 
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