Berwick Hills councillor slams 'dangerous' grass verges

Labour’s Cllr Ian Blades claimed you would never see verges like those in his area in Nunthorpe or Coulby Newham. He’s also concerned that someone will fall down the holes when it’s dark.

Cllr Blades said: “Every road in this estate needs this doing, I’ve calculated it’s £2.5m just to do this estate. It’s a lot of money but we spend a lot of money on other things.

“Someone is going to fall down one of the holes when it’s dark, especially if the lights are reduced. Some of the holes are huge, they’re like golf bunkers.”

The Labour politician believes rather than waiting years for the work to be carried out, the council should borrow the cash now, tarmac the verges and pay it back over the long term. He also thinks it will save the local authority money as funds won’t be needed to maintain the grassy stretches.

The state of the grass verges (Image: LDR)

Cllr Blades, who represents Berwick Hills and Pallister, went on to add: “If you go up Nunthorpe or Coulby Newham, you wouldn’t see a grass verge like this. The problem here is that people have no choice but to park on the grass verge because of the bus stop.

“Other grass verges have been done and they’re tarmac and there are no problems, they’re clean. They’re dog toilets anyway, they just get left. The ones that are done are clean and everyone is happy. Everyone can park their cars outside their house, there are no arguments.”

He wants to see the verges tackled on Overdale Road and Ingram Road first as they’re key bus routes.

At a scrutiny panel meeting in October last year, politicians raised the issue of grass verges. Cllr Joan McTigue said residents go mad when they’re churned up, Cllr Janet Thompson claimed she was told it would take five years to get the problems sorted she reported and Cllr Ron Arundale suggested they were paved over.

The council’s environment head, Geoff Field, said there weren’t the funds to sort out all of the issues straight away. On average, the local authority spends around £200,000 per year sorting out grass verges.

Mr Field added that spending more cash fixing grass verges would be detrimental to other areas of work like road and pavement repairs, which were also in high demand. He added: “Grass verges are a problem and they have been a problem for quite a while.

“We know we have a significant backlog on road maintenance and pavement maintenance, and we know that we are doing our best to rectify it…I haven’t got loads of money I can suddenly throw at grass verges when I have all of these other demands. I am so sorry, I can’t offer you anything.”

As part of the 2023/24 budget, the planned £15m investment for highway repairs and maintenance will be scaled back to £7.5m.

More than £12m worth of cuts and a 3.99% council tax rise have also been lined up after a £14.9m black hole was identified. Councillors will vote on the proposals on Monday, February 27.