Council to scrutinise road repairs
West Berkshire Council is to look into its road repairs programme and its fixing of potholes
AN investigation into the state of the winter ravaged roads across Newbury and West Berkshire is to begin after forecasters predicted another big freeze ahead and said snow could fall as early as October.
At a full meeting of West Berkshire Council on Thursday (22) the shadow councillor for highways, Keith Woodhams (Lib Dem, Thatcham West), called for a scrutiny panel to look into how money was being spent on repairs after it emerged the number of insurance claims against the council for damage to vehicles had risen during the two recent bad winters.
Forecasters at Exacta Weather, which uses analysis of solar activity to provide long-range forecasts, have warned of a cold snap of snowfalls as early as October or November in certain parts of the UK.
Mr Woodhams said taxpayers pockets were being raided to fix roads which quickly deteriorated and required re-patching, and a review would ease the financial burden on the council's already stretched resources should the district see a repeat of last year's winter, which brought the harshest conditions for over thirty years.
He said other councils had used different repair techniques to streamline repairs, and urged West Berkshire Council to look into the matter.
The councillor responsible for highways David Betts (Con, Purley-on-Thames) expressed his bemusement at Mr Woodhams' actions and called the motion “political posturing”.
“We have been through this many times,” he said.
“I always ask him to tell me where the potholes are but we never get any response. We always try different things when it comes to fixing the roads. It is not just a local problem but our statistics show a consistent improvement over the last two years.
“We are fully prepared for another bad winter.
“I welcome the opportunity to demonstrate that our road repair programme is carried out cost effectively in line with industry best practice.”
Over the past two years the council has drawn up a severe winter weather plan to tackle the bad weather, which has included quadrupling its supply of grit.
The council's Overview and Scrutiny panel will now be tasked with looking into the spending on road repairs.
