Tenterden residents are concerned about potholes

Tenterden residents and councillors are concerned about potholes

Transcript

00:00 I ride my bike all the time. I do it for shopping in Tencent, I do it for pleasure, I do it for errands, all the time.

00:06 And this junction here at Craythorn, leading into Beaconhead Road, has got progressively more dangerous.

00:13 There are potholes down the middle, there are potholes on the edge, there's metalwork,

00:17 and there's also the coming over the brow of the hill, traffic can't see us.

00:23 So it's incredibly dangerous.

00:24 There's something that needs to be done because there's going to be an accident here.

00:27 And I'm an experienced cyclist, I cycle with the Tencent Cycle Club, so I know what to do for traffic.

00:33 But even so, it's just really dangerous.

00:36 They certainly need to mend the road. It's got to the point where we really do need some action in this town.

00:43 And we have had some potholes and roads mended.

00:46 But our priority is towards our own roads, and there are roads in other parts of the county that are probably just as bad as this.

00:54 But this one is... our residents drive over this, and trucks and cars and parked cars and everything are here constantly.

01:04 It's a busy road, and the time has come now for action more quickly than in the past.

01:11 Just from the A28, just down the hill here, there are 50 potholes in just 250 millimetres of road.

01:19 And what's particularly concerning are the ones that affect cyclists coming down here close to the sidewalk.

01:24 There have been some improvements.

01:26 In the main high street, there was a section that was resurfaced.

01:29 But here, unfortunately, some temporary repairs were just patch and dash.

01:35 They've already disappeared. They're not effective at all.

01:38 And the roads are actually much, much worse.

01:40 And the state of the roads, as I mentioned, just in 250 metres, we've got 50 holes.

01:47 It's ridiculous. In fact, the whole road needs repairing, not just each individual pothole.

01:53 And the most concern of all is this is a busy, busy road.

01:57 We're trying to encourage active travel, people to use bicycles.

02:01 You have to be very brave to want to ride your bike along a road like this.

02:06 It's winter. We've got the gritters out. We're at a nine-year high of pothole reporting.

02:10 It's very cold. It's very wet. We've got the perfect conditions where it is at the very worst.

02:14 So I'm not happy with the roads.

02:16 I'm happy that we have people out there on a constant basis in all weathers reporting,

02:21 acting upon the inquiries we get.

02:24 I want to see the roads better.

02:25 They will get better. At the moment, they're not where I'd like them.

02:27 We've got $134.5 million over 10 to 11 years, which starts in April.

02:32 It's mainly backloaded, so there's more money in the late years than the first years.

02:36 But to put it into context, to get our roads into a position we would want,

02:39 what our residents would want, would cost about $700 million at the moment, as it is now.

02:44 What is very useful, though, is knowing we have a longer-term funding plan,

02:48 so we can actually look at more than year by year,

02:50 going from one pothole season to the next.

02:53 We can start looking at investing in new technology,

02:55 so there's much more chance of getting these jobs done first time

02:58 without having to go back when there are problems.