Petition started over 'terrible' state of Corby's roads

Cllrs Alison Dalziel and Simon Rielly have been out in Corby looking at some of the dreadful potholes around the town including this one in Fotheringhay Road

Labour councillors in Corby are pressuring North Northamptonshire Council to fix the town’s crumbling roads.

The group, which sits as the opposition on the Tory-run authority, met last week to discuss transport issues in the town.

Now they have started a campaign to try to persuade the council to fix thousands of pot-holes in roads across Corby.

This week's round-up of the potholes causing you problems in Kettering, Corby, W...

Councillor Alison Dalziel (Lab, Corby West) said her own car had been damaged after she hit a pothole.

She said: “Many of the roads in Corby are in a dreadful state.

"I do a weekly ward round across my division and am reporting large pot holes practically every week.

The state of the road outside Lodge Park Academy in Shetland Way

"The condition of Shetland Way is terrible, particularly outside the school on the speed humps, but I was told that the works would be completed within six months.

"Now a massive pot hole has developed on Fotheringhay Road, near to the mini roundabout for Collingwood Avenue.

"But it’s not just in Corby West division – councillors across the unitary are saying the same thing, that the roads are in a terrible state.

"On Monday evening last week, I hit a pot hole on Kingsthorpe Avenue and on Tuesday morning my front passenger tyre was completely flat and damaged. I had to replace the whole tyre.

Another corker that's been reported to North Northants Council

"In frustration at the state of the roads, I have set up the petition and plan to submit it to the council.

"We have also asked for residents’ views via a short survey. Something has to be done – the town is a mess.”

Shadow portfolio holder for highways Cllr Simon Rielly (Lab, Oakley) said: “Roads across the unitary are in a terrible state of repair.

This road barely has a surface left to fix

"We are constantly raising this with officers, and are told that action is being taken. Our mailboxes are full of unhappy residents who are constantly reporting pot holes online, or via their councillors.

"We call on NNC to set up an action plan with the contractor Keir to assess the poor state of the roads and develop a proper plan to address this, as it is only going to get worse if action is not taken now.”

More than 700 people have signed the petition which you can view here.

The council’s £30m annual highways contract is managed by Kier who first began to manage the county’s highways in 2008. Their contract was split between West and North Northamptonshire and renewed in our part of the county in June last year. The firm will manage highways for at least the next seven years.

Cllr Graham Lawman, North Northamptonshire Council’s Executive member for Highways, Travel and Assets, said: “Maintaining the highway is a priority for the council and we have a comprehensive, year-round, programme of inspections and works in place to address highways defects.

“More recently, we invested an additional £1.5million in a wide-ranging programme directly into communities to maintain local roads, footpaths, signage and drainage, whilst allowing teams to find and fix potholes that would not normally be on the programme of immediate repairs.

“Like the rest of the UK, at this time of year, the backlog tends to increase as winter weather speeds up the deterioration of our network. Additionally, crews are spending more time responding to winter events, such as gritting, rather than having the capacity to fix roads.

“We urge people to continue to report any highways defects through the Street Doctor service - which received record reports last month - with the council fixing defects on a well-rehearsed priority basis in accordance with the published network and asset management plans, guided by the risk they present to road users.

“Some road maintenance treatments are not possible in cold weather and, in the spring, the council will start its more widespread resurfacing programme, providing long-term permanent repairs on larger areas of roads.

“In particular, a comprehensive scheme has been agreed for Occupation Road in Corby this month, that will see vast improvement as there was with the recent resurfacing of Queensway in Wellingborough.”

The council says since September 2022, about 5,900 reactive defects repairs have been carried out.

Details of current forthcoming schemes are available here.