Greens condemn further weakening of County Council highways service in rural areas

The Essex County Council Cabinet Member for Highways has issued a notice to all County Councillors telling them that he intends to change the maintenance priorities for Essex Highways (1).

The revision will see potholes on local rural roads and in many villages left for even longer. The response time for P2 defects on local roads will be increased from next working day to 5 working days. P3 defects are now proposed to have no target date for repair.  

There has already been significant concern and complaint expressed in rural areas over poor service from ECC Highways with respect to some roads and now that service looks set to worsen further.

Cllr. James Abbott, Green Group Leader and Member for Witham Northern said

"This is another significant decision from Cllr. Bass "handed down" to the ranks. We have had zero consultation on this change.

For our local rural roads and lanes we will now get an even worse service.

It is already the case, even before the announced change to the priorities, that potentially dangerous potholes are left for months on some roads, only being "inspected" to see if they get worse ! The ECC Cabinet Member is just introducing even more complex and bureaucratic criteria to try and mask the lack of a decent service from his department.

In the division I represent some of these holes left for months on rural roads and lanes and in the villages can exceed 1m in diameter and exceed 10cm in depth, clearly potentially dangerous to a driver or cyclist that does not see them and hits them.

We may need to look locally at ways of repairing these long neglected significant defects by other means if ECC is not going to do the work.

The decision that we have been "handed down" today refers to the council being confident that it can defend itself against claims. It is appalling, but typical, that ECC appears more concerned about defending itself against damage claims than about providing a decent service. We have suggested to Cllr. Bass a local priority scheme based on the County Member and Parish Council reporting significant defects for repair without the need for inspection, but he rejected this out of hand."