Local people in Coulsdon have been tolerating terrible paving conditions in our part of the borough for far too long.
You’ll not have to walk far to notice broken slabs, trip hazards and many potholes on both the town centre pavements and on the highway.
After being ignored for far too long and learning of a number of elderly residents tripping with serious injuries as a result, your local Conservative councillors launched a campaign to get Croydon Council to properly assess and invest in fixing our paving.
We recently secured a meeting with the relevant Council officer supervising road repairs. We left feeling encouraged and optimistic that the underlying issues are being taken seriously and that there's a plan to rectify it in the medium-long term.
This is what we learned:
The entirety of the paving in Coulsdon will be replaced
The broad issue of the suitability of the town centre paving was discussed. We were informed that in May this year the entire town centre area will be renewed, that includes the roundabout outside Aldi and the surrounding paving going up towards Chipstead Valley Road and Brighton Road. It may not be tarmac, but it will certainly be replaced in a way that uses better materials than the current slabs. The current paving cannot be replaced because the materials were provided by a specialist and the Council cannot secure any more. We are awaiting more detailed plans on what and when the works will take place, but we are assured it will retain the 'town' look of Coulsdon.
For now, where the stones are cracked they will be properly repaired with tarmac so they are not a danger to any pedestrians or vehicles.
The Council takes full responsibility for the current poor tarmac repair outside Aldi
There is a complete acceptance of responsibility for the poor works highlighted by both local councillors and residents, in particular at the junction outside Aldi. It is not fit for purpose and we received an apology for it. The Council is currently investigating what happened that went wrong with its contractor, but initial investigations suggest that rather than lifting the cobbles and then laying the temporary tarmac, the engineer simply poured the tarmac over the broken stones. This means that instead of the tarmac filling the crevice and no more, it spilt over onto perfectly secure stones. The former would have meant little mess and a more flushed, secure finish, the latter meant much greater breakaway and a very insecure finish.
This has been tidied up and should now be secure.
The criteria is used to determine speed and level of repair
We were keen to understand the criteria is that the Council uses to determine whether and how urgently the Council acts on wobbly or broken paving. The best practice guidelines that are widely adopted for pavements across most Local Authorities is set at 20mm - so if a paving slab is cracked and not deemed dangerous, then it will not be replaced unless it's raised 20mm from the floor. In the road/carriageway the threshold is 40mm.
There are of course different criteria if a piece of the road is particularly dangerous, and there are tough expectations applied. For example if it is deemed an emergency then the repair must take place in 2 hours, dangerous is 24 hours etc. There are hefty penalty fines if the contractor does not carry out the works in that period to the extent that it very rarely needs to be enforced.
Following our meeting, we are receiving monthly updates from the Highways Maintenance team informing us of all the road repairs and their urgency in Coulsdon. We will be keeping an eye on this going forwards.
Do they have enough resource to swiftly deal with road and paving issues?
We have been assured that despite the Council's financial issues that the Highways Maintenance Department have the resources and staffing to meet the needs of the borough.
We are thrilled that the Council has listened to our campaign and the pleas of the community and agreed to completely overhaul the unsatisfactory paving situation in Coulsdon. It is long overdue.
We await the details of these works and we will of course scrutinise them closely to make sure they meet the standards deserved and expected by our community.
