A Conservative councillor has tabled a residents’ petition asking South Gloucestershire Council to fix some of the district’s “crumbling” rural roads.
Cllr Ben Stokes, ward member for Boyd Valley on South Gloucestershire Council, is urging the council’s engineers to take urgent action to fix the roads in the Marshfield/St Catherine’s Valley area.
Cllr Stoke’s petition has received 250 signatures from local residents, many of whom have complained about potholes making the roads around their houses almost impossible to use.
The petition highlights “the shocking state” of roads such as Ayford Lane, Oakford Lane, Ashwicke Road and Beeks Lane and “requests that the council urgently reviews its long-term plan to maintain this critical link to Marshfield for residents of St Catherines” and the surrounding area.
Cllr Ben Stokes, who is also a Boyd Valley resident, said: “The rural roads in Boyd Valley, particularly on the lanes south of Marshfield, are in a terrible state of repair. The sheer amount of potholes and lack of adequate drainage makes them almost completely inaccessible.
“I’ve brought this petition in order to highlight the problem and to call on the council to act as quickly as possible.
“The crumbling roads often cause serious problems for residents, damaging their vehicles and forcing them to take long detours just to avoid the worst areas, with the alternative route adding more than five miles to the journey.
“Something needs to be done urgently and I call on the council to put extra focus on tackling potholes in the rural areas.”
At the council’s annual budget-setting meeting on Wednesday 19 February, Conservative councillors tabled a series of budget amendments, one of which called for £1.9m of new money to go towards fixing potholes on the district’s roads.
But on the night, members of the council’s ruling Liberal Democrat and Labour groups voted against the proposal, choosing instead to spend public money on measures the Conservatives deemed unnecessary.
Cllr Stokes is hoping that the council will take his petition seriously and will respond as quickly as possible with a timetable to fix Boyd Valley’s crumbling roads.
