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Villagers face £73,000 bill to fix potholed road

BBC Sarah Wright standing by a pothole-ridden road. She is wearing a grey-green anorak over a padded brown jacket. She is looking towards, but not directly at the camera. Trees and a wooden fence can be seen behind her.BBC
Resident Sarah Wright has been campaigning to repair the road since 2016

Villagers have been told by a council they will have to pay more than £70,000 to repair potholes on the sole access road to their homes and garages.

Whitebarns Lane in Furneux Pelham, Hertfordshire, links a main road to a cul-de-sac where many people live in social housing.

Resident Sarah Wright said villagers had been told it would cost £73,000 to repair the road where elderly people and schoolchildren have been injured after falling.

Hertfordshire County Council said it understood residents’ frustration and sympathised but Whitebarns Lane had always been and remained a public footpath, not a road.

A deep pothole filled with water can be seen on an uneven road surface. Grass and trees can also be seen, along with a house in the background.
Residents say the potholes on Whitebarns Lane have caused injuries and accidents

Mrs Wright said Whitebarns Lane had never been adopted by the council, despite being the sole access road to about 30 homes.

An adopted road is a private road that has been taken over by a local authority and is now maintained at public expense.

She said the situation was unique in Hertfordshire in that the the cul-de-sac and main road were adopted while the lane was not.

In 2016, the council told residents that bringing it up to an adoptable standard would cost them £73,000.

Mrs Wright said some residents had found this "frightening" and some had been crying on her doorstep, saying there was no way they could find the money.

"It is a money issue... if the council adopt it, they have to provide pathways and drainage and lighting, which I appreciate is expensive, but we do need fit-for-purpose access to the main highway," she said.

She said elderly residents needed to be able to walk to the church, village hall, local shop and bus stop.

Mrs Wright said the road would remain pothole-ridden until the council recognised its "moral responsibility".

Several semi-detached local authority-style houses can be seen in a cul-de-sac. A car, pick-up truck and caravan can be seen parked outside. There is a blue sky with white and grey cloud.
There are about 30 properties in the cul-de-sac at the end of Whitebarns Lane

The state of the road has been an issue for the past 60 years, and Mrs Wright said every 20 years or so residents had to fight the council "for a service they should have always automatically had".

Nearly 300 people have signed a petition calling for the road to be made fit for purpose.

Herts Mercury Article dating back to 1980 from the local paper, the Herts Mercury, saying two Hertfordshire councils had agreed to share the cost of repairing the road.Herts Mercury
The road had already been at the centre of a dispute for at least 20 years before it featured in the Herts Mercury in 1980

The council said: “It would potentially be possible to adopt Whitebarns Lane as a public road, but only if the landowner, or the residents living along the lane, were able to bring it up to an acceptable standard.

"We have offered to contribute towards the cost of the necessary works.

“In the meantime, we will continue to maintain Whitebarns Lane as a public footpath.”

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