Eastwood and Kimberley roads on council's £2m ‘urgent’ repairs list - but critics say plans ‘far too late’
Nottinghamshire Council has announced nearly £2m in ‘urgent’ road work repairs to more than 30 key areas across the county, including two in Eastwood and Kimberley.
Brookhill Leys Road in Eastwood and Main Street (at its junction with Nine Corners) in Kimberley will both have £50,000 of repairs carried out on it as part of the scheme announced by the Reform-led county council during its full council budget meeting on February 26.
A third Broxtowe road – Hassocks Lane in Beeston – will also both get £50,000 of repairs carried out on it.
The Reform-led county council has come under fire in recent weeks due to an abundance of damaged roads and litters of potholes being left untouched.
Earlier this year, Coun Mike Adams (Con) showcased the crumbling state of the A612 Colwick Loop Road, next to the Marks and Spencer in Netherfield, in a Facebook video which gained more than 40,000 views.
Gedling MP Michael Payne (Lab) also took a swipe at the authority in a Facebook video, highlighting the deteriorated state of Godfrey Street and Arnold Lane in his constituency and what he saw as the council’s inadequate response letter to him.
This video amassed more than 130,000 views.
The authority’s highways director visited the Loop Road spot on February 19 with Coun Adams.
But the councillor said he ‘had not heard a thing’ from the authority since the visit.
Now, the council appears to be putting some plans to action, announcing that it will be spending £1.83m on ‘urgent’ road works to 35 Nottinghamshire hotspots.
It says ‘recent and prolonged’ wet weather over winter has caused ‘rapid deterioration’ to parts of the network.
Speaking to the Local Democracy Reporting Service following the announcement, Coun Adams said the pressure both he and residents had put on the council to fix the roads in their area was ‘key’ to the sudden announcement.
He said: “I’m really happy they’ve responded to the urgent situation, lots of people’s cars getting damaged, the safety issues, it was really dangerous.
“But it’s still not done yet – I want to see spades in the road and this getting resolved and fixed as soon as humanly possible.”
Coun Sam Smith, the Conservative group leader, who represents the Trent Valley ward alongside Coun dams at Gedling Council, added: “I’m really delighted for the drivers right across Nottinghamshire who are having their wheels popped and their springs broken.”
However, he said Reform’s announcement was ‘far too late’ and the authority lacked winter road resilience, adding: “There’s £75,000 for flags that Reform spent.
"If that had gone into potholes it would have repaired 1,000 potholes across the county, in a not so good way – tar out of the bag – but it’s called a safety repair.
“The garage owners across Nottinghamshire’s profit margin would be down by a lot but that’s the Reform way – boost the economy for the car garages.”
The new urgent scheme comes before a three-year programme that will start in 2026-27 that will patch, resurface or surface dress 4.5m square metres of road – 16 per cent of the total road network.
The nearly £2m-worth of works will be funded by underspends and savings from within the council’s current highway budgets.
Recent highway network surveys show that 15.9 per cent of Nottinghamshire’s roads are in a poor condition and require urgent maintenance, while 21.7 per cent are likely to need repairs “soon”.
Speaking at the meeting, Coun Bert Bingham (Ref) said for the three-year programme the council ‘will be reviewing types of materials we use, we’ll be using thicker layers of asphalt and stronger materials, hot rolled asphalt instead of stone asphalt’.
He added: “This will ensure new road surfaces last for a longer time – or a long time.
"That will automatically reduce the amount of temporary versions of pothole repairs.”