Potholes and other road-related issues are high up my list of priorities at the moment, as residents often contact me about them. I have to admit I’m rather frustrated that we still don’t have a Balfour Beatty (BBLP) locality steward for the ward – I’ve got an ever-growing list of issues to take up with the new person as soon as s/he is in post, which BBLP assure me will be in mid-February. In fact, wouldn’t it be simpler all round if it was Council staff doing the work, rather than it being outsourced to BBLP? The collapse of Carillion has sparked a long-overdue debate about the pros and cons of contracting out; personally I’d much prefer the Council to be running its own highways services in-house, as I’m sure the extra layers of management and contract supervision mean that contracted-out highways services are more expensive and less responsive…
Anyway. One very practical and useful thing that we can all do is report potholes and other roads issues to the Council via this web page (which also shows you if it has already been reported). You can also use this pothole and road defect progress map to see which issues are currently being addressed. So please, if you notice a pothole, help us all out and report it online – and I’ll make it my business to chase BBLP up. Thank you!
