Cheltenham's MP, Alex Chalk, has welcomed a pledge from the County Council to fix the 50 worst potholes across the town, as nominated by residents.
The pledge was secured by the town's MP at a Shire Hall meeting last week and comes on top of the work the County Council are already undertaking to repair Cheltenham's roads. Mr Chalk is now inviting residents to identify potholes in their local area, which will be analysed and collated, so that the 50 most ‘popular' can submitted to the County Council for repair within 28 days. These should be potholes which are yet to be circled with white paint by the County Council's contractors. The white paint indicates they are already known to the highways team and are due to be repaired.
This latest campaign follows a pothole summit organised by Mr Chalk last summer, which saw residents given the opportunity to raise their pothole-related concerns directly with the Highways team at the County Council. That pressure yielded results, with the Council committing to (and successfully fixing) the top ten pothole zones across Cheltenham, as suggested by Cheltonians, within 28 days. Since then, the town's man in Westminster has raised concerns, both locally and in Parliament, about the quality of repairs, and the failure to repair crumbling surfaces before they break up. He also campaigned for more Government funding, lobbying for the new ￡250m ‘Pothole Fund’, subsequently announced by the Chancellor, George Osborne.
In addition, the County Council announced recently that it would be pumping an extra ￡3 million of funding into its road repair budget for the upcoming year. The money came partly from an additional ￡2.47m of funding, which was received following lobbying by Alex Chalk and his fellow Gloucestershire MPs. Part of this funding will be used to roll out a 'lengthsman programme' across the county. Lengthsmen are maintenance teams, dedicated to a particular area of the road network, who work to repair minor defects before potholes appear.
Speaking about his latest campaign, Mr Chalk said ‘'Potholes remain an important issue for our town and its infrastructure. I am pleased to have secured this additional pledge from the County Council and would encourage residents to submit their suggestions for my top 50 list by completing the survey below. The Government has provided welcome additional funding to tackle this issue and I am determined to ensure it actually produces tangible results for our town.''
Residents can nominate their pothole for inclusion in the top 50 by following this link: