By Nick Griffiths

Published at 11:58, Friday, 04 January 2013

REPAIRS to Allerdale’s road network increased as 2012 progressed and the weather got worse, according to a new report.

A report submitted to Cumbria County Council showed the number of days it took to get potholes fixed dropped from 14 in April to 10 in December. Across Copeland, the repair time stayed largely steady, at around five or six days.

In Carlisle, it dropped from 12 in April to seven in December but in Eden they virtually doubled from nine, 10 or 11 days until November and December, when they took 20 and 21 days.

The report to the county council’s local committee for Eden also reveals safety inspections are now being carried out at minor roads in every parish in the county every three months.

It states: “The extremely wet weather conditions last year resulted in a much larger number of drainage problems occurring. In predominantly rural areas, such as Eden, rain falling on land already saturated simply flows off onto adjacent highways and it has proved difficult to deal with this excessive run-off.”

Reports have emerged of an apparent increase in potholes on Cumbria’s roads in recent weeks, with the council pointing to hard frosts in October and November ahead of the current relatively mild weather leading to road damage.

For the last six months highways maintenance crews have been carrying out routine visits to each parish and the report says feedback has been “generally very positive”.

These visits are being placed on a more formal footing from April, when, the report states, “each team will, as part of their routine visits to the parishes, undertake a safety inspection”.

Opinion – page 12

Published by http://www.newsandstar.co.uk