The County council replaced it’s pot hole and other faults highways reporting system last September. This meant moving from a 1998 system to a 2025 system which has massively improved the efficiency and functionality of the system. There are however some ongoing issues.
Firstly, please report, report, report highways faults. If the council don’t know there’s a problem it won’t get fixed.
What if my report isn’t looked at?
You will get an email when your report is looked at and the message on the reporting system (online map which is completely anonymised) should change colour and show an update. If you haven’t received a report please email me, ros.hathorn@cambridgeshire.gov.uk or roshathorn@hotmail.com and I will push it.
What if my report’s rejected?
I just want to make people aware of a glitch in the system. If you report something that doesn’t meet the criteria of being an actionable fault, ie the hole isn’t deep enough or whatever you will get a ‘we know it’s disappointing but…’ style email.
Last month I received dozens of these. I challenged one of them and was told that the email was a glitch. Because there was a backlog of thousands of reports some of which were years old they had closed down the historic reports. We were meant to receive an email explaining that and advising us to re-report the issue if it was still a problem instead we just got the ‘this issue does not meet actionable standards’ style email. This was really frustrating and annoyed me at the time.
The lesson being if you have had a response you don’t agree with you can challenge it or you can forward it to me, particularly if you have current photographic evidence I am really happy to challenge any report where it has been decided that work will not be ordered. This won’t always result in a change in approach but sometimes it will deliver more local repairs.
Why didn’t the county council replace the reporting system earlier? Because you want to do it once and you want to do it right. It took a long time to work out exactly what the correct replacement system was, it also took time to plan the transition. After the Conservatives lost power the new leadership (Liberal Democrat/ Labour/ Independent) inherited a highways service absolutely ridden with holes and vacancies from the top to the bottom. Getting excellent staff, rebuilding confidence, restructuring appropriately, finding excellent people takes time. The staff are the strongest they have been since 2021 although frustratingly the government’s Local Government Reorganisation programme is already taking it’s toll and we are now beginning to lose staff again including the Executive director, keen to find a more stable position for his family.
hiopcouncillors 