I would say that the topic that elicits the most complaints is not anti-social behaviour, nor planning permission but roads. Residents are fed up with pot holes and poor quality surfaces. So I now hope that a decision last week by Surrey County Council’s Executive to agree a new strategy to prioritise and tackle highway maintenance will be a breakthrough in dealing more successfully with these issues.
Surrey is facing a backlog of work being tackled in the face of less funding from central government for road works. In 2007-08 funding for roads from from Gordon Brown's government was just 18% of the total planned spending on roads. This means Surrey got just £154 per resident – the national average in England was £426 each - and Manchester got a whopping £719, more than four times Surrey’s funding.
To try to to make the best of a challenging situation this the county council is apparently changing the way they treat roads to balance spending across remedial and preventative work. At the moment the council rates roads across Surrey as green, amber or red with green being in good condition and red in needing significant repairs. Following this weeks decision 60% of any available funds will be spent on dealing with the worst ‘red’ roads and 40% for remedial work on those roads that are just starting to decline to make sure they don’t become ‘red’ roads. In addition, the County Council has agreed a set of criteria that will prioritise which roads to improve first. These criteria don’t just include the condition of the road. They also consider whether it is a priority for the public and their County Councillors. These criteria will now be applied to the roads identified as in need of repair.
So what does this mean for us locally. Hopefully it means that Pope's Lane will now get the attention it deserves. This issue has now been dragging on since early 2006 and an end is not yet in sight. Given the new emphasis on the public's (and their County Councillor's) priorities I would suggest that residents contact the County Council on 08456 009 009 and also their County Councillor to impress upon them what they feel needs repairing urgently.
