Bucks roads are worse than Third World ones

10:50am Sunday 8th July 2012 in Your Letters

AS someone who has spent many frustrating hours talking to Buckinghamshire’s “Highways on Call” attempting to identify the location of a pot hole I am encouraged to read in the BFP (Motors, June 22) that Transport for Bucks has at last realised that the existing system has failed.

For at least ten years, the roads in Bucks and particularly the rural roads have all suffered from continuous neglect.

Today, many of the rural roads in the county are in a worse condition than those in Third World countries.

The amateurish filling in of pot holes will never solve the problem when large areas of the road surface have broken up and the road needs resurfacing.

The existing system operated by Transport for Bucks to identify the location of pot holes is archaic. The system is driven by street and house number reference. Once you move into the countryside, very few rural lanes have identifiable names and there are no houses.

Bockmer Road is a country lane that runs from Rotten Row to its junction with Hooks Lane on Marlow Common. Except for a short section of the lane where it passes through Bockmer End, its boundaries are woods and open countryside. Identifying a pot hole relative to the fourth beech tree on the left after the bend makes it almost impossible to locate the pot hole.

It is also frustrating for those people reporting pot holes. It is in fact a system from the Dark Ages.

I would request therefore, that Transport for Bucks also updates it mapping system so that road defects can be identified from either Ordnance Survey map references and/or data from Satnav units which will provide a location accurate within a few meters.

Anthony Weeden, Bockmer End, Nr Marlow

Comments (4)

12:01pm Mon 9 Jul 12

Dr Truth says...

Dear Mr Weeden

Have you visited the Third World and indeed do you have any evidence of pot hole reporting systems from the Dark Ages for the comparisons you draw.

Or are you just a bit put out by something of relatively little consequence?
Dear Mr Weeden Have you visited the Third World and indeed do you have any evidence of pot hole reporting systems from the Dark Ages for the comparisons you draw. Or are you just a bit put out by something of relatively little consequence? Dr Truth

10:05am Tue 10 Jul 12

KentP says...

Hyperbole aside, he has a point... The state of the roads around Wycombe can be pretty ropey
Hyperbole aside, he has a point... The state of the roads around Wycombe can be pretty ropey KentP

9:32am Wed 11 Jul 12

wayneo says...

They've just spent a fortune updating to a map based Traffic management map. They still can't get it right.
They've just spent a fortune updating to a map based Traffic management map. They still can't get it right. wayneo

10:33am Wed 11 Jul 12

Monte Cristo says...

Mr Weeden is largely correct - the roads in the Wycombe area are mainly appalling, and obviously worse than many other areas because you notice it if you drive out of the area then back in. I live on Green Hill, and there are many bad holes in the road, but what's the point if reporting them at all if only a temporary repair is done? And why should the public have to do it anyway - there are so many roads with large holes in them, it must be clearly evident to the relevant authority. Perhaps the powers that be should properly repair our existing infrastructure before building any new roads, or building HS2, or spending millions on flawed NHS IT projects etc etc etc.
Mr Weeden is largely correct - the roads in the Wycombe area are mainly appalling, and obviously worse than many other areas because you notice it if you drive out of the area then back in. I live on Green Hill, and there are many bad holes in the road, but what's the point if reporting them at all if only a temporary repair is done? And why should the public have to do it anyway - there are so many roads with large holes in them, it must be clearly evident to the relevant authority. Perhaps the powers that be should properly repair our existing infrastructure before building any new roads, or building HS2, or spending millions on flawed NHS IT projects etc etc etc. Monte Cristo

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