Road was fine

There are – and I am sure that lots of drivers would agree with me – many, many roads with poor surfaces desperately in need of remedial work. The Camp du Roi and Landes du Marche spring to mind, not to mention the absolutely dreadful Vale Avenue, which surely must be on a par with an Australian outback track. There are many others. No one I am sure minds too much about the congestion and inconvenience caused by roadworks (although the diversions are a pain and are sometimes badly planned) if it achieves a good finish, but this one seems to be a complete waste of money.

Who actually decides the road resurfacing priorities? This work must be costing the taxpayer a lot of money and I think those resources should be directed towards other areas.

Having said that, well done for the Mont d’Aval surface, this is an excellent bit of work and the contractor should be congratulated on the superb finish.

One more moan though. Most of the new road surfaces are completely ruined by the very poor installation of service covers, manholes etc. They always seem to be recessed into the surface, ruining an otherwise good finish.

MARTIN NICKOLLS

martinanickolls@gmail.com

Editor’s footnote: a Traffic & Highway Services spokesman replies:

Thank you very much for the opportunity to respond to the points raised in this letter.

The road is over 20 years old and the surface was at the end of its service life with ‘fretting’ occurring. This is when the asphalt starts to become brittle and the bituminous material binding the stone together breaks down. This has seen the stone breaking apart in places, which allows moisture to get in. This was most in evidence on the corner adjacent to the Sandy Hook junction. When driving on a road in this condition, it creates more noise than a surface in good condition.

One of the challenges Traffic & Highway Services face is that people do not see a road as needing resurfacing until they see holes in it. As readers will know, it is best to spend money on your roof just before holes appear, not when it is letting water into the house. In the same way, Traffic & Highway Services is proactively trying to invest in its infrastructure, the roads, before they deteriorate to a state where the road is in a very poor state, meaning much more work is needed at greater cost.

Further deterioration of the road was expected over the winter. It is best to address these issues now ahead of the poor weather rather than next spring or summer when more people will be using this coastal area and more inconvenienced. It is hoped this shows that the road is in need of resurfacing.

On the more general points, Traffic & Highway Services is aware that there are other roads in need of repair and is steadily working through these. It continues to carry out multiple projects every week but has to co-ordinate these with other planned closures.

Vale Road will be resurfaced by Guernsey Water as a follow-up to its works in the road to increase the capacity of the sewer network. It has needed to wait until works by Guernsey Gas were completed and allow a settlement period before it can undertake these final works.

Traffic & Highway Services is appreciative of the kind words about the quality of its works and it will continue to work hard to improve Guernsey’s roads.