YOUR recent comment piece suggests that Hampshire County Council should spend less time and effort on A-boards and more time on highways maintenance.

I couldn’t agree more and would like to reassure you and your readers that we do, indeed, spend a great deal of time and resources on highways maintenance.

This is a major priority for us as we recognise the importance of good transport infrastructure to Hampshire’s economic prospects and quality of life and I think is well reflected in the most recent National Highways and Transport (NHT) survey which ranked Hampshire County Council the top county council in a national survey of residents’ satisfaction with local highway maintenance services.

If I might cover the issue of A-boards first of all. I have said on a number of occasions now, we are bound by a legal duty to respond if we receive a complaint.

It is as simple as that.

However, in order to support local businesses and find a way around this we have devised a policy for borough councils to licence an Aboard scheme as we believe that local councils are best placed to run this, as they do parking, for example. This policy has been in place for some years for borough councils to take up should they wish and does not detract from highways maintenance work at all.

However, to put highways maintenance into context and the scale of the work we do, I would like to point out that Hampshire, with 5,280 miles of road, has one of the largest road networks in the country. It has a strategic position close to London with roads leading to and from two ports, an airport and major motorways. The amount of traffic on Hampshire’s roads is, therefore, very heavy. Coupled with the fact that the last few winters have not been kind to the roads, with the freeze-thaw effect of cold water getting into the road surface, causing widespread damage, then I am afraid it is inevitable that potholes appear.

For some years we have taken a different approach to highways maintenance in order to achieve the best value for money. Instead of a reactive approach to filling potholes as they appear we have looked at the road network as a whole, assessed its condition and planned works accordingly. This reduces the need for costly reactive repairs in the future. To make more of Hampshire’s roads resilient to the effects of extreme weather and increasingly heavy traffic as part of a long-term strategy to ‘future-proof’ the network we are investing £56m in planned maintenance this year. Additionally Hampshire received an extra £6m from the Government’s ‘pothole fund’ – one of the highest allocations in the south-east because Hampshire demonstrates best practice – as well as £11.5m to repair flood-damaged roads, reflecting the scale of the damage last winter.

In the first half of this financial year alone 45 miles of roads were resurfaced and the latest figures to January show that 105,000 potholes so far have been fixed.

But keeping Hampshire moving does not mean just filling potholes and there is an enormous amount of work that goes on repairing roads at junctions, carriageway edges, putting in drainage schemes, maintaining bridges and improving footways.

We regularly inspect the roads but welcome reports of potholes and other defects that people come across.

The best way to let us know is online at hants.gov.uk/roadproblems.

Councillor Seán Woodward, executive member for economy, transport and environment, Hampshire County Council

 

Dear editor, welcome to Andover.

I’m sorry that you’ve discovered Andover might be the contender for the title of Britain’s Highest Number of Potholes.

Over the past three years I have reported 48 incidents of areas requiring council attention.

Thirty three involved reports of dangerous potholes.

As a keen cyclist I’m very much aware of potholes and their dangers.

The council seem to take a different attitude. Unless it’s 30cm wide and 30cm deep it doesn’t pose a threat. Verges breaking away are not even recognised but they were probably the cause of your car’s damage.

There is a system supported by the Government for reporting potholes; it is called “fix my street”. It is available online and is free and simple to use. Anyone can use it. It is effective until it gets to the council, who seem to be lethargic in rectifying the damage.

I recommend your readers use it. It can be used for reporting any problem for which a council has responsibility.

Best of luck with your repair.

Why don’t you claim for the damage through the small claims court?

‘Focus of Andover’, name supplied, via e-mail