PATCHING up a road in Downend which is continually in a state of disrepair “must have cost an absolute fortune”, says a resident.
Kevin Poole sent the Voice a drone picture of Salisbury Gardens, where potholes, patches and cracks near the junction with Park Road have made the surface look like a hopscotch court.
South Gloucestershire Council says there have been 22 reports of potholes at Salisbury Gardens in the last two years.
But Kevin believes the number of visits by council contractors to make repairs is “well over 30”.
He has been in contact with both the council’s streetcare department and councillor Ian Boulton, whose Staple Hill & Mangotsfield ward includes Salisbury Gardens.
Kevin said: “I understood that we were put on a preliminary list for resurfacing.
“The situation, especially on the entrance to Salisbury Gardens, has deteriorated even more.”
He said he had counted over 30 visits by workers repairing the road, adding: “This amount of work must have cost an absolute fortune.”
Kevin said the road surfacing was also breaking up around a manhole cover in Park Road adjacent to Salisbury Gardens where the tarmac has broken away.
South Gloucestershire Council is expected to publish its Local Transport Priority List for the coming financial year, which lists the roads where resurfacing is due to take place, during the next few weeks.
A council spokesperson said: “We have made a number of repairs to the road at Salisbury Gardens and it is on our list of sites that require resurfacing.
“We review these sites on an annual basis to establish our annual resurfacing programme.”
Last year the council’s cabinet member for local place, Leigh Ingham, said roads were “getting a little bit worse each year”, following “decades of underinvestment by governments across the local road network, which has become particularly acute in the last 13 years”.
She said: “We only spend about a third of what we should be spending to maintain at a standstill the quality of roads we have at the moment.”
Pothole reports last October were at nine times the level of the previous year, a cabinet meeting in December was told.
Potholes can be reported to the council online at
tinyurl.com/3tmy483c.
Road improvements can be requested at
tinyurl.com/4r4uhnzy