A PARISH council is to ask the county’s conservation team to take highways officers to task after they used Tarmac to patch up an historic cobbled road.
Staindrop parish councillors have, for several months, been asking for a cobbled road along south green to be repaired, but gratitude soon turned to dismay when officials finally turned up to do the work.
However, officers say they did not remove cobbles when they patched up potholes in the road (pictured far right).
Speaking at the last meeting, Cllr Ed Chicken said: “I think it looks really tatty. It is a conservation area and I think it deserves a proper job .There is a listed building in the Shambles, the village green is a jewel in the crown of Staindrop, and to just put bits of Tarmac that has been left over from another job seems a really cheap and nasty way of doing it.
“It does seem odd when they were happy to spend money to put lighting columns in and do other street works, but then leave the road. It is a bit like having holes in your carpet but putting a new bit of wallpaper up.” Earlier this year county officers installed heritage streetlights along the main road and all of the benches and rubbish bins in the village had been replaced.
Vice chairman Cllr Ian Royston said he suspected a full recobbling of the road would be expensive and had not been considered because the road is not a priority.
Cllr Chicken responded: “It is not a highway priority, but it is a priority to us and it is part of the historical aspect of the village.”
However, Cllr Roger Humphries worried that any mention of Tarmac would be seized upon by county officers to remove the cobbles.
He said: “It just shows that one hand doesn’t know what the other hand is doing. It is no good putting in very pleasing Victorian light standards and other environmental work if you botch up a very visible piece of public facility just because the highways department doesn’t regard it as a priority. What does the conservation team say specifically about that and can they bring pressure to bear on the highways department?
“That piece there, in visual terms, is as important as any other part of the village green.”
Chairman Cllr David Reed added: “I would hate to see it become Tarmac, and if they keep putting little bits in, it is all going to go that way.”
Brian Buckley, Durham County Council’s strategic highways manager, said: “We undertook a resurfacing scheme through Staindrop High Street in the early part of the summer, at a time when it would have the least impact on local residents and businesses. At no point during this work were any cobbles removed. When our highways inspector received a complaint regarding potholes in a tarmac section of the road in question, this was repaired with more tarmac in order to make it safe again, without any cobbles being take out.”
