Hillsborough councillor wants the public to know that work is being done to fill in the potholes plaguing Sheffield streets, despite repeated concerns that nothing is happening.
Christine Gilligan Kubo, a Green Party Councillor for Hillsborough Ward, has said that the council has raised concerns with Amey, their subcontractor for road maintenance, to tackle the rising issue of potholes.
Councillor Kubo said: “I think it’s sad that our roads are in such a state”
“I think Amey is listening, because we have been making quite a lot of fuss about the state of our roads as councillors.”
The council are ‘holding Amey to account’ and have asked them to come up with different ways to ensure that potholes do not worsen in future years.
Amey have said they are rolling out a new programme across the city called ‘Road Dressing’, which is not a complete road resurfacing, but rather a dressing which is applied to make the pothole more stable.
Amey can guarantee that it will assess serious potholes within 24 hours, and if need be put in a temporary filling, with a permanent filling being put in within 28 days.
Councillor Kubo seemed optimistic about this new programme, and said that she ‘hopes the roads start to improve.’
However, she did express that she ‘would like to see Amey telling the public what they are doing’, putting out information including which streets have already been visited and filled, and which roads are to expect repairs.
“A bit more open communication would help the public see that there is some work being done to fill in the potholes.”
Councillor Kubo wants to make sure the residents of Sheffield know that their complaints are not going unheard, and that the council are listening.
When asked what she thought was causing potholes to become more prevalent in Sheffield, Councillor Kubo expressed she believes it’s due to changing weather patterns because of climate change.
She explains how winters are much wetter than they used to be, and that the maintenance team have said that the long rain we have had since the beginning of the year has been one of the factors causing the roads to reach the state they are now in.
Potholes can be reported to the council website, https://www.sheffield.gov.uk/roads-pavements/report-road-problems
or the Streets Ahead website https://streetsaheadheadoffice.fixflo.com/issuereport/CreateIssue
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