Tuesday, March 03, 2009

Councillor Cliff Gets Snow Damage Fixed

Recently, I wrote about the LibDem's frankly odd response to the snow when they cut £20k from the Winter Highways Maintenance Budget, whilst looking out of the window at people sliding around on the ice outside the Civic Offices.


At their Cabinet meeting a few days later, the Lead Councillor scoffed at the Evening Standard and others who had commented on this blinkered approach.


It took a question by Councillor Cliff Carter to finally shame the LibDems into realising that Sutton's roads had more holes than a slice of Emmenthal. We've already got the raised obstructions in speed bumps, the potholes that have formed after the frozen conditions are a result of nature's way of evening things up a bit. The LibDems were forced into an emergency change in their budget, taking £250k from their contingency fund to fill some of the holes.

Interestingly they have spent all of their contingency in this current year. They haven't identified any more cash, so watch this space to see if they can last the coming year without scratching around raiding another pot of cash. Either way, it was good work by Cliff to get across the clear message that residents have been saying for the last few weeks.

3 comments:

Adrian Short said...

It's very easy to report street faults using FixMyStreet and there's even a very cool FixMyStreet iPhone application so that you can do it from the street using the iPhone's built-in camera and GPS.

The system is particularly useful because it "knows" which is the relevant local authority for the fault you're reporting and forwards your report to the relevant people.

Anonymous said...

i read this on the sutton guardian's website. well done councillor carter for getting the liberal council to get its act together on this.

keep up the good work

Anonymous said...

Between the humps and the potholes, Sutton's roads are on average level. As the potholes proliferate, just build more humps - problem solved!