We don’t normally respond to the political articles in the Rayleigh Times, but the one last week from Mark Francois MP was particularly interesting.
Mark was writing about potholes, and was refreshingly frank, bearing in mind he was a Conservative MP writing about a Conservative County Council. For example:
“…The number one issue on the doorsteps in Rayleigh was not any one national matter but rather the vexed subject of potholes. Time and again on Rayleigh doorsteps people raised the question of why a particular pothole nearby where they lived had not been filled in..”
“… The Government did provide several million pounds to Essex County Council to try and address this issue, but not all of this was spent as well as it might have been first time around…”
“…So come on County, get cracking and start filling more of these holes in, and then my constituents can bend my ear about something else in future”
Hopefully we will see some improvements, but there’s still a long way to go. For example, we have this nasty collapsing drain cover right at the entrance to the Market Car Park, only a few metres away from the Civic Suite in Rayleigh! (We have reported it.)
Might be a bit more interesting if he wrote about the reasons why ECC will not tell why they spent £5.1 of our money on days out and bar bills etc.
Whoops – that should say £5.1 million – not – five pounds ten….I’ll go to the back of the class.
Admin, you may have reported this “Pit of Peril” as you did with the similar unsafe “pit of Peril” in the pavement entering Laburnum Way. That was reported as urgent some three to four weeks ago but nothing has been done yet. It will be interesting to see whether the one near the Council Offices is repaired faster than the one just as near our MP’s home!
It may require Thunderbirds to sort these out!
I would like to mention the large pothole in the 50mph part of Rawreth Lane. It’s just before the change down to the 40mph part leading to the junction with the A129. It is around a drain in the middle of the road.
The fact that so many people are concerned about issues like potholes highlights the fact that local elections are important.
These pot holes are being reported all the time but the time span for waiting for action seems to be getting longer and longer. I was promised a sign for Mortimer Road nad that it would be installed in May but am still waiting. 4 weeks since reporting the nettles on the pavement in Hullbridge Road. Hambro Hill / Hullbridge Road resurfacing?? The list seems endless. Lots of promises but as yet no or very little delivery.
I reported the pot hole on Rawreth Lane, that you speak off Angelina via the Fixmystreet website about 8 or 9 weeks ago. I also used the reporting facility via the essex.gov.uk website and received a response that it would be investigated. For the highways department to allow this pothole to remain on what is one of the main arteries into and out off Rayleigh beggars belief. About 15 weeks ago I also posted on the same website about the sheer amount of potholes on Purleigh Road/Lansdowne Drive which have been there since the snows of Winter 2010/2011.
Cjav, yes it beggars belief, and the potholes that you mention have been reported numerous times. I think the blame lies high up at the County Council for plain poor management and planning. The local highways staff should not be blamed.
What worries me is that its easy to see the potholes – are things going wrong in other county council services that are less easy for the public to spot for now?
As of last Wednesday half of the potholes in Waltham Road had been patched up. Hopefully the other half have been done by now or will be done soon. However, only those marked with red spray have been done. Any others that, I guess, were not deemed too deep have been left which concerns me as we will only need a hard winter and we will be back to where we started.
Angelina and Cjav
I have reported the same pothole, as Admin is aware, twice over the last year to eighteen months. Said pothole caused almost £170 worth of damage to my car in the early part of this year too. I reported it on FixMy Street both times and have had acknowledgements – but nothing more!!
ECC