From FixMyStreet today, a Wakering problem:
.
Broken pavement edges.
Reported in the Pavements/footpaths category anonymously at 13:16 today
Sent to Essex County Council 4 minutes laterPavement broken with large potholes at edge. This right outside Bell House main entrance, Bell House being shelted housing. Should be attended to with urgency when considering the residents who cross pavement in this location.
We hope our local Conservatives are embarrassed by the figures below. They darn well ought to be.
This is a league table of the money spent on pothole repairs by Essex County Council by district or borough over the last three financial years:
Total £7.888 million
From FixmyStreet today:
Pothole, Eastwood Road
Reported in the Potholes category anonymously at 11:15 today
Sent to Essex County Council 5 minutes laterPothole on eastbound carriageway of Eastwood Road near Wyvales.
Hullbridge Road, next to Lubards Farm
Regular readers will know that we have been pushing for a pedestrian crossing in Hullbridge Road , opposite Lubards Farm. Over 200 people signed a petition in a very short time.
There was a local highways panel meeting last week, where all the councillors present were supportive of having a crossing. Trouble is , the County Council had carried out a survey on February 12th, and the results didn’t meet up with the usual council standards for a crossing.
In an 12 hour period , a staggering 10063 vehicles went past this point. That’s one every 4 seconds! And the traffic flow was pretty constant during that period , with a peak between 4 and 5 pm.
However only seven pedestrians crossed the road during those 12 hours.
The view of the councillors present was that people didn’t cross here because it wasn’t safe to do so without a pedestrian crossing. Also the weather was cold and icy and it took an average of 5 seconds to cross the road. Or to put it another way, the survey showed that Rayleigh people are sensible…!
So what to do next? We agreed to keep the funding in place for a crossing. We will also see if we can get a temporary crossing installed, leave it there for a month, and then do another survey. It’s good that Conservatives like Mark Francois, Stephen Castle and Tracy Chapman are working with us on this, and we can bounce ideas off each other. The local highways panel is really starting to work.
Have you ever been at a football match when the referee makes a big mistake, or a manager gets his tactics embarrassingly wrong? The crowd start singing “You don’t know what you’re doing”. We have a pretty similar situation now with Watery Lane.
The District Council are planning 500 houses near Watery Lane. Even though some opposition councillors voted against this , at least we were given the promise that Watery Lane would be improved. But that promise seems to be going out the window! As Hullbridge Green Councillor Michael Hoy points out here the County Council officially aren’t interested in improving Watery Lane!
In their response to the District Council proposals the County Council have said here :
Paragraph 3.178 should be amended to note that highway improvements would focus on the strategic network, which includes the junction of Hullbridge Road/ Watery Lane. Watery Lane is not part of the strategic network and the reference to improvements should be deleted.
Now you can argue about whether Watery Lane is a country lane, or part of the strategic road network. But that doesn’t really matter. What matters is that when it’s closed, it causes big problems. So with 500 houses coming it needs improving.
Michael Hoy sums things up pretty well:
“To us it is amazing that anyone from the County Council could state that improvements to Watery Lane should be deleted from the Allocations Document. Everyone who has lived with this road being closed for 3 months would disagree with the assessment that it is not strategic.
This is yet another example of how out of touch Essex County Council are with this part of Essex, they seem to believe that everyone to the south of Chelmsford is unimportant and would appear to have great trouble even locating us on a map, let alone in person.
It took 3 months of relentless campaigning and bad publicity before we got any action out of the County Council on Watery Lane and even then it was only to do the standard maintenance work that they had apparently been neglecting for the previous 9 months. They are now saying that even with a further 500 houses to be built in “Hullbridge” no work is needed on Watery Lane as it is not part of the Strategic Network. We will obviously be opposing this view forcibly with the Council.”
And if you haven’t heard fans chanting “You Don’t Know What You’re Doing!” this is what it sounds like:
We have been advised that County Highways will be carrying out resurfacing works in Eastview Drive and Fairland Close, Rayleigh soon. Residents in those roads will be getting letters from the County Council.
Weather permitting, work is planned to start on Tuesday 19th March 2013 and take 2 days to complete. The hours of work shall be 07:00 – 17:00. Signs will be placed prior to works to confirm the exact date. Please look at these signs as the dates could be affected by weather!
Once the surfacing is complete any necessary ironwork adjustment and / or road marking replacement will take place a few days later.
Regrettably due to the nature of the works the road will have to be closed to vehicular traffic whilst the works are in progress. Outside the hours of work the road shall be re-opened to traffic.
Here are some new reports that people have made on FixMyStreet. Let’s hope the County Council respond quickly….
This evening , a dangerous pothole in Hulbridge Road Rayleigh:
Pot hole
Reported in the Potholes category anonymously at 18:17 today
Sent to Essex County Council 3 minutes laterFairly substantial hole in the road just after you turn left from the roundabout. Caused the car in front to swerve onto oncoming side of the road so as to avoid.
and more from Thursday, for Rochford, Canewdon and Rawreth:
Pot hole around drain cover
Reported in the Potholes category anonymously at 19:30, Thursday
Sent to Essex County Council 5 minutes laterAs with most pot holes on this road, it is quite deep and hard to avoid on a busy narrow road
Potholes
Reported in the Potholes category by Steve Currell at 18:17, Thursday
Sent to Essex County Council 3 minutes laterFour potholes round four drain covers between shops past oxford rd and holt farm school over a 100m length of road on the oxford road side of the Southend bound track
Pothole
Reported in the Potholes category by Steve Currell at 17:48, Thursday
Sent to Essex County Council 1 minute later
Pothole sycamore way on anchor lane side of cedar way
Roads and Pavements, pothole
Reported by StreetReport iPhone in the Potholes category by Steve Currell at 14:18, Thursday
Sent to Essex County Council 1 minute laterFirst noticed on Thu, 21 Feb 2013.
I see this as high priority.
Massive pothole at junction of slip into rawreth lane
We’ve been advised that at 5 pm today, Watery Lane is still officially closed….
Thorpe Road in Hawkwell is likely to be closed temporarily to road vehicles. Councillors John and Christine Mason write about it here:
We have been very concerned that the Thorpe Road Closure proposals were not included in the planning application. We only learnt about this last Thursday and immediately protested in the strongest possible terms to the Managing Director.
But we are pleased to be able to advise you that DWH have taken the problems and concerns that their construction is causing seriously and DWH have put forward certain arrangements that will hopefully ease the disruption and perceived potential problems as far as possible.
Chris spoke to County Highways today about Priory Chase.
The good news is that despite the recent shake-up at the County Council – which moved Rochford from the South Essex highways office to Mid Essex – the same engineer will carry on with this. (So we don’t have an engineer starting from scratch who doesn’t know the location).
However we don’t seem much further forward in getting the road adopted. This is depressing – and it’s about time Taylor Wimpey publicly said when they will get the work done to get the road ready to adoption standard.
But the parking restrictions ARE likely to come in some time this year. County Highways have been advised by the police that they CAN bring in official yellow lines even before the road is adopted. We know that residents want yellow lines, and others don’t….. County will try to find a compromise, but will ultimately look at safety and accessibility.
Last Saturday the County Council quietly changed which group of engineers looks after our highways. This was a surprise to just about everyone – including the District Council.
Rochford District is now part of a mid-Essex group, so we have to get to know a different set of engineers. We haven’t heard a reason for this
Though the boundaries for the Customer Call Centre remain the same- but now these do not align with the operational areas.
There has been some activity in Watery Lane at last. BUT WATERY LANE IS STILL CLOSED – DON’T DRIVE DOWN THERE YET! (3 drivers had to be rescued today !)
Quite a lot has happened in the last few days.
We are Liberal Democrat councillors and campaigners in Rochford District.
We want to improve local decision-making and we see onlineFOCUS as a good way of keep residents informed and involved.
Please click here to email us .
Ron Oatham
Trevor Parrett
Bruce Smart
Chris Stanley
Pam Waldie
Elena Black
If you want information on a particular planning application, you can find it on the District Council website here.
If you want to know what new planning applications have been submitted this week, click here.
If you want to report a problem, you can email Lib Dems councillors by clicking here.
There's also an independent website called FixMyStreet. It's very good for reporting minor street problems like holes in the road, grafitti or failed streetlights. You can find FixMyStreet here.
Rochford District Council carries out grass cutting on behalf of the County Council.
If you see a grass verge that badly needs cutting, you can report it
here.
This is the official master document for planning policy in our district! To download it, click here
click here. (2.5mb)
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