Some of our roads have become a patchwork of erosion, says Blackpool councillor

A Blackpool councillor has slammed the state of some roads on the coast and the way partial repairs aren’t fixing the problems.

Coun Julie Sloman says some of the roads have become a “patchwork of erosion” and are unacceptable.

The Norbreck councillor says areas of her ward are a case in point and is calling for the issue to be properly addressed by the road authority for the area,  Blackpool Council.

She said: “I want to point out just how bad things have become on some of our roads in Norbreck.

“I think it is farcical the way partial remedial work has been undertaken – a patchwork in a massive area of erosion.

“It’s like putting a sticking plaster on one part of a wound leaving the rest of the wound to become infected.

“When I raised this at full Council I was told “we work to National Guidelines” in terms of the measurement of road erosion to determine when to intervene.

“I challenged the notion that these guidelines only determine when we legally have to intervene and there is nothing to prevent us, as a town,  to work beyond the guidelines and intervene before we absolutely have to.

“Several metres of Maplewood Drive and Mossom Lane are affected but there will be no work because some aspects of the erosion fall a few millimetres short for intervention thresholds.

“Serious erosion will most likely become a pothole at some point and surely it is more cost effective where there is a patch of erosion to repair the lot rather than fix things piecemeal.”

Coun Sloman said she was particularly concerned that if a car swerved to avoid an eroded area or pothole, it could result in a serious accident and also raised concern about the state of the road close to Norbreck Primary Academy.

She said millions of pounds of funding was being allocated to highways repairs yet again emphasis was on the town centre with little or no regard for residential roads.

At the full council meeting, Coun Sloman raised these issues with Coun Paula Burdess, the Cabinet Member for Community Safety, Street Scenes and Neighbourhoods, who said £11m was available to be spent on road resurfacing and other issues including tram maintenance and traffic signal upgrades.

Coun Burdess told her: “When you’re talking about the highway delivery, the road maintenance improvement, much of the wear of the Blackpool network is through its unique usage where we experience unusually high peaks of traffic volume through the year, such as public events and holiday traffic, which compromise the surfaces of ageing highways.

“There is the eternal conundrum of what constitutes a pothole. Patch repairing is of detriment to whole road surface, so there are so many considerations needed when treating these areas.

“The highways are monitored really carefully through the Gaist system and where immediate repair is needed, immediate repair takes place and it prioritises the repairs. There are over 300 miles of road.

“Unfortunately in some cases – this isn’t the answer that members would like – but there are other more serious important cases to deal with as priority.

“In terms of the technical explanations of why repairs didn’t happen, we can look into that and get answers from officers for you.”