Residents of a Herefordshire village are outraged over the continued poor state of its main road.
Zoe McLean of Cusop near Hay-on-Wye said she and fellow neighbours have been trying “for years” to get Herefordshire Council to resurface and reapply double yellow lines on Cusop Dingle, the main road through the border hamlet.
“The whole road is now just a patchwork of badly filled potholes and crumbling tarmac,” she said.
Double yellow lines preventing obstructive parking in the popular visitor spot “have crumbled away”, meaning parking violations can no longer be enforced.
Meanwhile lanes and driveways are increasingly blocked by thoughtlessly parked cars, preventing home deliveries and bin collections.
“There are a number of elderly people and people with health issues living in the area, and emergency vehicles would also be unable to reach us if needed,” Ms McLean added.
“We have spoken to our parish council but they’re powerless to help.”
Hopes of an improvement were recently raised when the council’s public realm contractor Balfour Beatty announced they would carry out some resurfacing and re-lining work nearby.
“But the crews left having only resurfaced about 15 of the 2,500 metres that needs to be repaired,” Ms McLean said.
Fellow resident Sandy Sandaver said patients coming to his acupuncture clinic are among those hit by what he called “inadequate road and pavement maintenance over many, many years” – in sharp contrast to roads just over the Welsh border.
And despite a personal visit from council leader Jonathan Lester to see the problem first-hand, “this has not resulted in either the resurfacing or pavement repairs”, he said.
A spokesperson for Herefordshire Council said: “We continue to inspect Cusop Road [sic] in accordance with our highway maintenance plan and reactively when reports of issues are received.
“There are no carriageway or footway defects warranting intervention at this time. We have plans in place to refresh the yellow lines, however we are currently responding to higher priority works.”