Highways chief denies Bridgnorth is suffering above average road repair delays
A member of the cabinet at Shropshire Council has denied that Bridgnorth is experiencing longer delays when it comes to highway repairs than other parts of the county.
In a submitted question to the authority's full meeting of councillors this week, Councillor Julia Buckley, who represents Bridgnorth at the county authority, asked why the the average completion time according to Shropshire’s Fixmystreet portal for highway repairs in the county was 36 days, but repairs in Bridgnorth were more than a year overdue.
In response to her question, Councillor Richard Marshall, cabinet member for highways, said Bridgnorth had actually a quicker repair time than was average for the county.
He said: “Our data highlights that the average time to fix a FixMyStreet enquiry in Bridgnorth is 34 days.
"The average across Shropshire is 36 days, therefore any links to lower levels of service being experienced by Bridgnorth residents are not supported by the data. Operational performance across Shropshire has continued to improve significantly.
“I can assure both the local member and the residents of Bridgnorth that they have as much priority as the rest of the county and this is evidenced with the amount of work carried out over the past 12 months by our contractors and our own teams."
Councillor Marshall added that some of the examples cited by Councillor Buckley were reported during the initial launch phase of the FixMyStreet portal, used to allow residents to report and track repairs by the authority.
"At that time the system was in its infancy and was unable to inform people immediately that this is either 'not an actionable defect in accordance with our policy but we would continue to monitor via routine inspection', or 'was not a high priority and will added to a future programme of routine maintenance' which would have closed these enquires at a much earlier point," Councillor Marshall said.
