A Whittlesey councillor has accused Cambridgeshire County Council of “deliberately” prioritising road repairs in the south of the county and ignoring Fenland. The attack was mounted by Cllr Chris Boden, a county and town councillor and also leader of Fenland District Council.
His comments were posted to social media at 8am today to update residents on repairs being carried out to the B1040. The road is closed until November 22 for county council contractors to repair a flood damaged stretch.
Cllr Boden signed off his update by promising residents that “I’ll give more information later about how the geographical priority for road repairs has deliberately been skewed towards the south of the county in the last three years.
“But just for now I’m more concerned in getting the B1040 re-opened without temporary traffic lights as soon as possible, and getting the traffic light timing further tweaked in favour of rush hour traffic on the King’s Dyke bridge”.
He added: “We are all justified in being exasperated that it’s taken 8 months to start this work – and it’s totally correct when some residents complain that there’s have been nothing like an 8 month wait if this problem had been in Cambridge rather than in Fenland.”
Cllr Boden said the B1040 was closed on Monday to allow the work to start.
“Initially, the carriageway surface was removed following the set-up of the site and diversion route,” he said.
“On Tuesday and Wednesday, we saw preparation works including the transportation and cutting of the sheet piles, ecological works and digging of trial holes for public utilities.
“Today the piling rig is scheduled to be delivered to the site to start installation of the sheet piles.”
He added: “This sheet piling isn’t just a repair of the flood damage to the banking on that section of the B1040, it’s an improvement which will significantly reduce the risk of similar flood damage for that section of the B1040 when we have future flooding of the Whittlesey Washes, a functional flood plain deliberately designed to hold flood waters when necessary.”
Cambridgeshire County Council has been approached for a response.
