99 potholes left after visit from contractors
SallyAnn Copeland counted 99 potholes on her rural unsealed road on Friday afternoon – and that was after council contractors had been out to look at it.
Copeland complained to Stuff about the condition of Rosemarkie Rd near Gore last week fearing the potholes would cause a crash or break the axle of her car.
Council contractors drove up the road on Friday morning and had filled in some potholes – but Copeland was far from impressed with the job they had done.
“They’ve done half a job. I’m sick to death of driving on it – the council might say they routinely inspect it but nothing happens after they do,’’ she said.
“Why have they only filled in some potholes and not others?’’
Last week, Gore District Council roading asset manager Murray Hasler said the road had very low traffic volume and priority was given to roads with more traffic, but Copeland disputed that.
“There are three houses and five farms on this road, they all have staff and residents coming and going, and it’s used by a school bus and milk tankers,’’ she said.
Gore District Council general manager critical services Jason Domigan said the road was graded on Monday.
“Pothole patching is a temporary solution that minimises larger potholes we identify through both regular inspections and customer service requests. It is not a permanent solution for potholes on our unsealed roading network but can help minimise the impacts in the short term.
“The size of our roading network, weather conditions and increasing costs makes it challenging to maintain our network optimally.”
Jason Domigan
When asked whether the council was happy with the standard of work from the contractors last Friday, whether the council believed it was maintaining rural roads to an acceptable standard or why the state of the road had not been reported during regular inpsections, he said the Gore district encompasses 896km of roads, 538km of that being unsealed.
“Metalling and grading is carried out regularly and is weather dependent. Council has added an additional grader to mitigate this as we move towards the winter months.
“The size of our roading network, weather conditions and increasing costs makes it challenging to maintain our network optimally, and we work alongside our contractors too and are seeking to make improvements to service where we can’’.
Domigan encouraged residents who had issues with roads to call council or to log a customer service request through the website so its teams could address these as soon as possible.