Beaconsfield town potholes slammed as 'shameful' by cyclist

Ian Rundle from Beaconsfield has written to Buckinghamshire Council to report several potholes which are ‘potentially dangerous’ to road users.

He shared a selection of images of potholes he found from the A40 to Wattleton Road on a his walk on Thursday, April 13.

He said: "Is it really acceptable to have to wait between 6 and 12 months for a road to be repaired that if treated may prevent someone from breaking their leg, injuring themselves falling off a bike, or a car bursting a tyre or damaging its suspension?

"The fact that this is a stretch of road alongside the newly opened Surgery in Beaconsfield would, I'd have thought, pushed this works higher up the prioritisation list. 

"Maybe I suppose, with so many to do......where to start.

"Roads across Bucks are in a shameful state, and the tawdry patching that attempts to pass itself off as repair work simply adds to the problem and adds to the costs of local taxpayers.

"In addition, there are so many roads which have been "properly" tarmaced that are already crumbling - an example that springs to mind being Station Road in Beaconsfield. 

"But this could equally be applied to towns the length and breadth of the County.

"The "recent poor weather" excuse can hardly be used - whilst we had a few days of sub zero temperatures, most would agree the winter has been milder than usual."

High Wycombe MP Steve Baker recognises how dangerous potholes can be for motorists and cyclists.

He told Bucks Free Press on April 6: “I’d like to see perfect roads everywhere. That is not only for car drivers, who I represent, but that is also for motorcyclists like myself for whom potholes can be genuinely dangerous and of course cyclists.

“Pavements too often are in a state, and you see people, particularly if they need an aid for walking, struggle.

“So I’d like to see all our roads and our pavements brought up to the standard they should be, and I’m very pleased that the government and the budget put extra funding into potholes, which Buckinghamshire has benefitted from.

“I hope as we get into the spring and frost damage is at end I hope we see the council to get our roads and pavements up to speck.” 

Buckinghamshire Council referred back to its £100 million investment in improving the highways.

Steven Broadbent, Cabinet Member for Transport: said: “We appreciate and share residents’ frustration with the significant increase in potholes on many of our roads. Buckinghamshire, like many parts of the south-east, suffered a very harsh winter, with prolonged freezing and then very wet cycles that proved very damaging to our roads, especially those that have seen large increases in HGV traffic associated with projects such as HS2 and East West Rail.

"The council understands the importance of maintaining a safe highways network which is why it is rolling forward its investment of £100 million in Buckinghamshire’s roads over four years and has recently added an additional £5 million to this budget, and a further £2.3 million from central government in recognition of this issue. 

"With a much higher number of potholes reported this year, we have prioritised based on safety (as we always do) and our crews have made a huge number of mostly temporary repairs until weather conditions allow more permanent repairs to be made. Now that temperatures are rising and we will have periods of drier weather our crews are now on the road network making progress on the permanent repairs.

"Through our new Buckinghamshire Highways alliance, we will be using a range of new equipment and road surfacing techniques that are best matched to the type of road and the repairs needed to make good the potholes and other defects suffered over the winter and to protect the road surface on many other roads to minimise future winter effects.

"The scale of the repairs needed over the surfacing seasons means we will be undertaking a very large amount of work across the whole road network over the next six months and motorists are asked to be patient when they see our crews undertaking these essential repairs."