It's all gone to potholes

People living in Crossways had been told that a long list of minor works were completed when a Dorset County Council maintenance unit was in the village.

But not one of the jobs had even been started.

Chairman of Crossways parish council Bob Russell says six months ago the county council wrote asking what minor repair jobs needed doing in the area.

He said: "With that in mind, I went around every street and pavement in Crossways making a note of what needed to be done and came up with a list of about 10 jobs."

He said the jobs included filling in potholes, painting white lines and removing weeds and moss from pavements and kerbs.

Mr Russell said the parish council had recently received a letter from the county council saying the requested work had all been completed. He said: "I took a copy of my original report and went back around the village to find that not one of the jobs had been done. Perhaps they had been done but only lasted one week."

District highways engineer and maintenance unit project manager Jon Munslow said: "Parish maintenance units are teams of two who work to deal with problems and faults before they become dangerous.

"They fix potholes, blocked or covered gullies, obscured or damaged signs, minor damage to kerbs, channels, road edges and verges, weeds on footways and clear broken branches.

"Anyone who notices a road defect can report it to a parish council who will build up a list for the next visit."

He said the system had been in operation since March this year and appeared in this instance to be suffering from slight teething problems.

He said: "I'm aware that a list was put in by Crossways parish council and that work wasn't done. I'm investigating as to why that happened.

"This is a new method of delivering highway maintenance service to the parishes and we're always looking at ways to improve it.

"However, we serve around 250 parishes and we have only had problems in one parish, with very positive feedback from many others."