Furneux Pelham’s MP Chris Hinchliff presents villagers’ pothole petition to Parliament
MP Chris Hinchliff has presented a pothole petition to Parliament on behalf of desperate constituents in Furneux Pelham.
Potholed Whitebarns Lane is the sole access road to about 30 social housing homes and garages in the village. The state of it has been an issue for the past 60 years, and elderly people and schoolchildren have been injured in falls.
The lane links a main road and a cul de sac, both of which have been adopted by highways authority Hertfordshire County Council (HCC), but the lane itself has not. An adopted road is a private road that has been taken over by a local authority and is maintained at public expense.
The council said that the lane had always been, and remained, a public footpath, not a road. In 2016 it told villagers they would have to pay £73,000 to repair the holes to bring it up to an adoptable standard.
Campaigning resident Sarah Wright said that elderly residents needed to be able to walk to the church, village hall, shop and bus stop safely.
“It is a money issue... if the council adopt it, they have to provide pathways and drainage and lighting, which I appreciate is expensive, but we do need fit-for-purpose access to the main highway,” she said.
She said that every 20 years or so residents had to fight the council “for a service they should have always automatically had” and that the road would remain pothole-ridden until the council recognised its “moral responsibility”.
The council has said that it would “potentially be possible” to adopt Whitebarns Lane as a public road if the landowner, or residents living along the lane, were able to bring it up to an acceptable standard. It has offered to contribute towards the cost of the works and in the meantime will continue to maintain the lane as a public footpath.
Mr Hinchliff, the Labour member for North East Herts, told the House of Commons on Wednesday (February 27): “Whitebarns Lane has been left in a state of disrepair for years, despite being the only access road for many social housing tenants and others in the village.
“Hertfordshire County Council has refused to adequately maintain this road, forcing residents, including schoolchildren, the elderly and the disabled, to endure unsafe conditions.”
The petition calls on the Government to work with HCC to ensure some of the promised £1.6 billion increased funding for pothole repairs nationwide is spent in the village.
