The residents of Asterton, tucked under the Longmynd, have waited for weeks to have the severe potholes in their road repaired. Imagine their delight when the pothole repair team turned up this week
residents had all received letters informing them of a road closure on the very same road to take place on the following Monday for 9 days to enable the cable to be laid by Western Power.
Local Resident, Peter Lockerman, contacted the Shropshire Councillor for the area, Ruth Houghton, and explained the situation.
Ruth followed this up with Shropshire Council and received an apology for the delay from the Portfolio holder responsible for Highways. Nothing was mentioned about the apparent lack of joined-up working and co-ordination. It looked as though Monday’s work was going to go ahead.
However this wasn’t the end of the story, at lunchtime on Friday (30th October), Ruth received an email from Shropshire Council Streetworks team confirming that the works planned by Western Power for Monday had been canceled. There was no reason given for this cancellation.
Other Potholes
Ruth takes up the story and says, ” on Friday afternoon I decided to go over to Asterton, meet Mr Lockerman and find out what work had been done and what was planned. Having walked this very same road only 2 weeks ago and driven along it earlier this week I knew how bad the potholes were. Together we walked the length of the proposed road closure and examined those potholes that had been filled, despairingly other potholes less than half a mile away on the same stretch of road hadn’t been fixed. Mr Lockerman showed me his letter from Western Power, dated 21 October confirming the road closure. I don’t know if this closure had been approved by Shropshire Council and I am still trying to find out”.
“So now we have a part repaired road, planned cable work not taking place and it seems to me a situation where the left-hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing”
“The cost of all this will ultimately be met by the taxpayer; potholes have been filled in on a road to be dug up at some time in the future, scheduled work for Monday has been canceled with presumably a workforce
has written in exasperation to the CEO of Severn Trent Water after a litany of misery inflicted on residents of her Division by the Company’s repair gangs over the last three years.
Severn Trent repair teams do not seem to have any regard for the law or local residents. They frequently turn up unannounced, without any permit and try and close a road. In rural areas, this frequently has a major impact on the life of our communities as the subsequent detours are very long and bus companies and school buses are seldom consulted. Snailbeach and Stiperstones have particularly suffered in this respect.
Letter:
To: Liv Garfield CBE
Chief Executive Severn Trent Centre, 2, St John’s Street Coventry. CV1 2LZ
Date 29 October 2020
Dear Ms Garfield,
I am writing to draw your attention to the waste of Severn Trent’s resources and the chaos that your contractors are causing in the Shropshire Countryside.
We have a long history of crews turning up on-site with no road closure permit , to do routine works as emergency closures. I believe there have been several fines implemented by Shropshire Council. This causes chaos in rural areas with long diversions, school bus routes and farm stock movements. There is usually absolutely no idea where the closure is and resident drive miles out of their way trying to get home or to the local shop.
A good example was a recent road closure in Snailbeach – which would have caused a diversion of at least 12 miles. Your company applied for a permit. Further details were required by the Council’s permitting department but they received no reply.
Nevertheless, signs were put up for closure on 29-30 October last week. The Council asked for removal as there was no permit. More signs arrived this week. They were also requested for removal. Today a crew turned up to do the work has had to go to Telford to collect signs.
This has really affected the community in a number of ways:
This really brings the name of Severn Trent into disrepute locally, and wastes your resources.
I would be very grateful if you could get back to me explaining how you are going to put processes in place to prevent this from happening again.
To give you some good news, Bentley who are contracted to do some water pressure work for you, are working with the community to make their closure during school holidays in February are smooth and well signed.
We now need all your contractors to do this too.
Many thanks for your attention to this.
Yours sincerely,
Heather Kidd
Cllr Heather Kidd
Shropshire Councillor for Chirbury and Worthen Division