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Residents in The Broadway, Minster, hit out at Kent County Council's temporary patch up and businesses highlight further issues in Sheerness

By: Emma Grove

Published: 00:01, 29 November 2013

Patched up potholes in The Broadway, Minster

Highways bosses have been slammed for wasting more tax payers’ money on another patch up job on one of the worst roads on the Island.

Despite repeated requests from the Times Guardian about what will be done to permanently fix The Broadway, Minster, Kent Highways has still been unable to confirm details.

The whole stretch is littered with potholes and has a crumbling surface in many parts.

A report was carried out back in July which motorists hoped would lead to a complete resurfacing.

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But so far all Highways will say is that options for maintenance work are still being looked at.

However, last Wednesday engineers were out patching up another pothole on the junction of Shurland Avenue – the fifth repair that has been carried out in two months.

John Freeman shows the pothole before Kent Highways' temporary patch up last week

Resident John Freeman says there is already a ripple in the repair and with the forthcoming cold weather it’s only going to get worse.

The 58-year-old said: “They need to get an engineer to come and look at it properly.

“It’s a waste of money – there’s a big groove where they have patched it up and it’s sunk already.

“It’s all coming apart and it’s not going to last through the winter and we will be back to where we were, if not worse.”

Mr Freeman’s theory is that a sewer has collapsed underneath the section of the road outside his house.

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Southern Water said it is not aware of any problems but was due to carry out a CCTV survey on Tuesday to check.

A Kent Highways spokesman said its approach to mending potholes has been recognised nationally and that it has radically improved the way it looks after its roads.

“Crews fix every fault they come across in a particular street, rather than just repairing the worst potholes, typically doing six times the amount of work than would have been traditionally carried out.

“This helps raise the standard of our highways and helps improve efficiency by avoiding multiple visits to carry out individual reactive repairs later on.

“In terms of The Broadway we are looking at the options available to carry out maintenance works.

“In the meantime, we will monitor the road and any safety critical areas attended to.”


Puddles are still forming in High Street, Sheerness, despite work to resolve the problem

Meanwhile, concerns have also been raised about work which was carried out to repair Sheerness High Street.

After years of campaigning by local councillors, Kent Highways finally ‘fixed’ the road from its junction with Millennium Way almost up to the clock tower.

Repairs were finished earlier this month and it cost £40,000 to resurface it and renew the drainage channels.

But Nigel Probert, of Daisy Chains Florists which is in the High Street, says it has not solved issues and there is still a problem with surface water.

He said: “The speed bumps are a lot lower than they were originally so cars hurtle through there.

“A great big puddle forms outside our shop every time it rains and every time a car comes flying through it sprays the pedestrians, which is the reason they did the work in the first place.

“It looks nice, they did it in seven days and it’s not as bad as it was – but it’s still not right.

“I have reported it and if they come out they will see.”

Kent Highways was unable to respond to the concerns but a spokesman suggested it could be an issue for Southern Water.

However the organisation confirmed it is definitely a Highways problem.

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