Damaged Railings Shortmead St / High St / St Andrews - another update

 

On 1st July 2011, I received a response from Central Bedfordshire Highways, saying that Steve Thomas, Senior Engineer, Central Bedfordshire Council, is to make enquiries into the best course of action at this location.

 

After prompting I received a response on 21st July from Steve Thomas saying:

 

Sorry for delay in getting back to you.

 

As you are probably aware, a Masterplan has recently been produced for the further enhancement of the centre of Biggleswade. Part of this Masterplan states that the Town Centre should be de-cluttered of unnecessary street furniture (bollards, railings, barriers etc). At the moment, the Council is deciding what to do with any unnecessary existing street furniture which becomes broken or damaged. It is obviously not cost effective to repair or replace street furniture which is going to be removed in the near future - better to have a rolling programme of removal when damage occurs.

 

The current consensus is that only street furniture which provides a safety or regulatory requirement will be replaced. With this in mind I have asked my colleagues in highways to confirm if the barriers adjacent to the roundabout are fulfilling a safety requirement. If they are not, the damaged section will be removed and not replaced. If they are, I suspect it will be replaced with one which is less costly to maintain.

 

I will continue to liaise with my highways colleagues, so we can get this resolved as soon as possible.

 

I responded the same day:

 

I understand what you say. If the barrier is still required at the roundabout would it not be better to replace it with an existing barrier / railing of the same design, from somewhere else in the Market Square, which will be removed at some time, rather than a cheaper non matching alternative. It will take years and years to only remove barriers and bollards as they become damaged.

Speaking of damaged bollards. When I was in the town this morning, opposite Iceland a bollard has been ripped out of the ground, I suspect by a car hitting it. Who has responsibility for sorting this one out and should it now be removed and the area made good ? I have attached a photograph.

After more prompting I have received this response on 26th August 2011:

I am arranging for the damaged railings at the roundabout to be removed. The problem with these railings is that they were constructed to a particular radius rather than made up of a series of straight panels which would have been far easier to maintain. I think the uprights can be salvaged but not the panels.

 

I am also arranging for a number of damaged bollards (like the one in your picture) to be removed and for the paving to be reinstated.

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BACKGROUND

 

In the blog of 24th February 2011, I related the dispute between Biggleswade Town Town and Central Bedfordshire Highways about who was responsible for the repairs.
http://biggleswadeonline.blogspot.com/2011/02/lets-play-pass-parcel.html

After nearly 5 months of:

1. I can understand your frustration regarding the two organisations not taking responsibility. I have raised the issue with the Planners that installed them as part of the regeneration scheme. I am confident that a resolution will soon be achieved.

2. I chasing that one, just waiting a response.

3. I am really sorry you have not received a reply. I have forwarded the email to our Economic & Physical Regeneration team to reply as a matter of urgency.

On the 19th June I made a formal complaint. The response time is two working days. So after five working days I asked for a response.

The response was:

Please accept our apologies for the delay in responding to your email of 19th June.

The barriers were installed at the request of Biggleswade Town Council many years ago and are not barriers that the Highways would install or maintain as they have been installed as a decorative feature.

The barriers that Highways can install are the standard safety barriers which would look very out of place. As Biggleswade Town Council requested these be installed it is their responsibility to pay for a replacement barrier of the same style if they wish to do so.

We appreciate that this matter has been going back and forth a number of months however the Highways Team do not have funds available to replace decorative barriers that they have no responsibility for.

We have copied this email to the Town Council so that they can make the necessary arrangements for repairs to be made.

I have now received a copy of an email from the Biggleswade Town Clerk to Highways asking that in future they do some background checking before sending out responses of this nature and copying the email to Steve Thomas of Central Bedfordshire Council asking that he contact Highways and myself to appraise us of ownership of the barriers.

Back to square one, do not pass Go and do not collect 200 pounds.

I have written to Highways and copied it to the Town Clerk and Steve Thomas:

So where does this leave the report I made in February 2011 and the recent formal complaint I made about this issue not being resolved after nearly 5 months.