Readers have been making their views known after Nottinghamshire County Council’s leader said as much as £200million is needed to fix the area’s roads. Councillor Ben Bradley made the claim after opposition councillors proposed a £20.5m investment into the county’s roads at the authority’s annual budget meeting.
As reported earlier this week, Cllr Bradley said: “The idea that £20m would fix anything is for the birds. Truth be told, if we wanted to do the best possible job we could we’d want £200m. £20m isn’t going to give us the ability to control the weather either, which is the biggest cause of recent damage.
“It’s a bit disingenuous to suggest to residents that there is a silver bullet for the roads.” We posted his comments on our Facebook page - and people were keen to comment.
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Ken Wood said: “All new road projects should be suspended until roads are fixed.” Samantha J Sanderson said: “The other day I had to avoid several potholes in the roads on my motorcycle in the Nottinghamshire area, thinking at the back of my mind ‘will this injure me?!’“
Other readers said they thought potholes weren’t being repaired correctly the first time around. Marc Hazard said: “Do them properly first time instead of bodging them.“
Michele Walker said: “The damage some of the roads do to cars is awful.” Zeth Sampson said: “Roads are knackered in Nottingham.”
Russ Bancroft said: “This is what we pay our taxes for. The roads should have been maintained properly over the years then they wouldn't have got so bad.
“Thirteen years of underfunding from central Government hasn't helped.” Ben Costello asked why we pay road tax.
Jon Cook commented: “Maybe we should all sue the council. Roads aren’t fit for road tax.”
Andrew Coulson added: “The whole country is falling to bits, not just the roads. The entire system is s***.”
The debate comes after Nottinghamshire County Council commissioned a cross-party review of highways in the summer of 2021 to look at the way in which roads were repaired. The Conservative-led authority said it aimed to move towards a “right-first time approach” where roads were resurfaced instead of potholes being temporarily filled.
The council said at the end of last year that the use of Viafix to temporarily fill potholes had decreased by 61%, with the number of pothole complaints also falling. But some opposition councillors have complained that several roads in their area were still in a poor state.
What do you think? Have your say in the comments section below.
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