State of Calderdale roads and repairs labelled 'an embarrassment'

At a reconvened meeting of the full Calderdale Council, both Coun Stephen Baines (Con, Northowram and Shelf) and Coun Paul Bellenger (Lib Dem, Greetland and Stainland) raised issues including lack of, or incomplete, white and yellow lining and the poor state of repairs carried out by some contractors.

But parking on pavements was an issue partly affecting the latter and the authority may be seeking powers to issue fines relating to it, councillors heard.

In the meeting’s questions-to-Cabinet section, Coun Baines said some road surfaces in Calderdale were “an embarrassment” and asked Cabinet which category roads were within the criteria used for “best council in the north” status.

“I also want to raise the point about white lining, which is virtually non-existent in many places, increasing the risk of accidents and corner-cutting at junctions.

“Too many of the yellow parking restriction lineages are not continuous or do not have a ‘T’ bar at the ends which makes then unenforceable under the Road Traffic Act.

“What action have you taken to rectify these problems?” he said.

Cabinet member for Regeneration and Strategy, Coun Jane Scullion (Lab, Luddenden Foot) said Calderdale was working across its directorates to see if it was possible to inspect and “blitz” particular areas at the same time, saving money.

“However, I have to say that this year, and within this financial year, we had £1.3 million taken out of our highways budget, so we are working really hard to make that money work as hard as we possibly can,” she said.

Coun Bellenger added concerns about poor quality of some repairs.

“I’ve noticed where we’ve actually had the pavement resurfaced with tarmac and they’re actually failing in a lot of places.

“What are we actually doing to hold these companies that are providing this poor workmanship to account, what sort of guarantees have they provided on the lifespan of the surfaces that they’re actually putting down, what are we doing to make sure they come back and repair these?” he said.

Coun Scullion said senior officers were pursuing actively issues including the sheer number of road openings the borough had for utilities in particular.

She said the council pursued contractors in terms of restoration.

“The other thing is of course the difficult issue of pavement parking and misuse of the pavement which cracks up those surfaces.

“The Government has been doing a consultation on pavement parking and we are looking at the question of what powers we might pull to Calderdale in terms of giving us some authority to be able to enforce and fine people in relation to pavement parking,” she said.

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