Cherry Hinton Road Resurfacing

Quick reminder - the long awaited resurfacing work on Cherry Hinton Road (Perne Rd to Cherry Hinton) is due to start at some point over the next week. Expect a few delays...

Good news on Resurfacing

Good news from the County Council! Cherry Hinton Road is set to be resurfaced from Perne Rd to Cherry Hinton. This has been one of Coleridge Conservatives long standing requests for action to improve the road surfacing, and we welcome this news (although there are some sections nearer Hills Road that also could do with attention).

The County Council adds: 'It is anticipated the programme of work will commence mid June and will take approximately 6 weeks to complete. As the process is totally weather reliant it is impossible at this stage to give precise dates for each site.  However, notices to inform road users of the works will be displayed at each location at least seven days before any work is undertaken.'

Potholes Update

City and County Councillors were briefed on Tuesday by officers from the County Council about the scourge of potholes across the City.

It is pretty clear that the whole Country is suffering from huge numbers of potholes after the winter weather, not just Cambridgeshire - with temperatures hovering around zero for weeks, the repeated freeze-thaw cycles have done immense damage that is going to take a long while to recover from.

There are currently around 2,000 potholes reported, about 165 a week are being fixed, so it is going to take months to clear the backlog.

The County Council are doing all they can to get roads back to a usable state:

• Extra funding has been made available for potholes, and they are spending next year's budget early. Repairs are not being held up by lack of funding, but because all road maintenance crews are already working flat out - you can't simply get crews from other parts of the Country, as everywhere is suffering.
• Fixing potholes will take priority over more routine maintenance - this will likely affect the current and next year's routine maintenance programme.
• It is difficult to do good permanent repairs in cold weather - the usual approach is a temporary patch then replace with a proper repair later. The temporary patches were lasting so little time, they indicated they would now try effecting a permanent repair first time - but this will also mean more potholes wait longer for attention.
• Finally, the County has changed the way it prioritises work - it is drawing up new priority lists on a weekly or even daily basis, to tackle the worst areas.

The message was that members of the public should carry on reporting potholes, but be aware it may take a long while to get round to them. I tend to use www.fixmystreet.com to report problems (don't get me started on why the County Council can't post updates to this website - they say they can't provide updates, but that is patently ridiculous - they are now trying to reinvent the wheel and write some software of their own taking great time and expense...).

I do have suggestions for improving the situation in future years - I don't think the highways inspectors are proactive enough in getting utilities etc who dig up roads to replace the surfacing to a very high standard. They are allowed to make temporary repairs then come back, but this doesn't always happen.

But ultimately I think it is clear that keeping road surfaces in good condition, particularly in Cambridge where we have a lot of cyclists, is just an area of the budget that needs more funding if we want our roads to start the winter in reasonable good condition...

Interesting Meeting later today

I'll be very interested to see the outcome of the County Council Conservative group AGM on Friday, in particular who the new Matt Bradney in charge of transport in the City will be. Whoever he or she is can expect a phone call - I have a little list...

UPDATE: Sounds like it will be a little while longer before we can see the white smoke...

Potholing

After months of commuting along Hills Road by bike, it seemed like a good idea to get someone from the Council out on their bike to see first hand the state of some of the roads in Coleridge and used for commuting by Coleridge residents.

And so on an unusually dry morning last week I met with the highways officer responsible for road maintenance in the South of the City and a representative from Cambridge Cycle Campaign for a cycle tour. The main aim was to look at some of the worst surfaces and any other issues we came across, find out which ones can be tackled from within the very limited road maintenance budgets and get them on to the Council's radar. It was very useful for me as a local Councillor - I think I ended up with more issues on my list to look into. It turned into 2 hours of 'potholing' - the most interesting thing I learnt was that Hills Road is built over concrete slabs - due to the use of the road for transporting tanks in the war (I wonder if anyone can remember this?). Unfortunately it is the concrete slabs moving as plates that have caused the damage to the surface near the Catholic Church, and make it hard to effect permanent repairs. This post wouldn't be complete without a picture of the type of issue we were looking at!

There were various potholes that have been added to the list of areas needing repair. The main issues covered were as follows:

Repair of road surface following work by utility companies: some of the reinstatements are terrible, with the tarmac being squeezed out immediately creating a ski-jump effect. I requested that the Council gets much tougher with contractors who don't re-instate the road well after roadworks - a particular example is Hills Rd outside Purbeck Road. The EDF works on Cherry Hinton Road are an example of good reinstatement - I won't name the company that appears to be responsible for some of the worst resurfacing, but we know who they are!

The Tins path (Coldhams Lane to Mill Road): There will be some immediate repairs where there are dangerous (i.e. deep) ruts, but a more substantial resurfacing is due later with money from the Cycling demonstration towns award Cambridge. I requested the Council looks into purchasing a strip of land to widen the path as it is currently narrow as well as uneven (I understand this may already be under consideration). Snakey path could do with some support under the path next to the stream, but it is going to be difficult to make this significantly better.

Love Lane, Cherry Hinton: Surface maintenance works planned - scope and timetable to be confirmed.

Cherry Hinton Road outside CH Hall - remove temporary folk festival tarmac 'ramps'.

Add reflector/fluorescent markings to central bollard on southern approach to Carter cycle bridge. I am already trying to get the pedestrian path on Rustat Rd extended to the bridge.

Devonshire Rd cycle lane off carter bridge: Agreed not 'dangerous' so won't get maintenance work. This illustrates the limitation of maintenance budgets. In view of its importance as a cycle lane, I've requested that this is considered for resurfacing as part of the capital program of repairs, or as part of a planning agreement for the potential station area redevelopment.

Hole opposite Mills and Reeve/outside Centennial Hotel on Hills Road to be patched - I think this may already have been done.

The block work on Bateman Street at the junction of Hills Road is very loose and uneven - this is already planned for relaying, hopefully in the near future.

My main area of concern is the road surface around the Hills Road/Lensfield Road junction, with the potholes on the approach that can't be avoided due to the lines of traffic, the sunken drain in the middle of the junction, and bizarre ridge on southbound approach. I hope there will be some maintenance here, but as mentioned above, the concrete base for supporting tanks make it very difficult to make a long term repair...

Many thanks to the County Council for their help!