Wednesday 05 March 2014
BBC Radio Guernsey Enquiry (03/03/2014):
Just e-mailing with regards to the phone conversation we had earlier.
What I'm requesting is somebody from your department to talk about the state of coastal car parks at the moment, as we've had a few photos and e-mails in complaining about the state of some of the car parks (I've attached a few photos as examples).
So what we'd want to know is:
· What the department's budget for coastal car park repairs is?
· How many car parks are being maintained by the department?
· Whether there are any current strategies dealing with potholes in the car parks?
The guest would be for our Breakfast show.
Environment Department Response:
The Environment Department manages nearly 40 car parks. The annual budget for coastal car park repairs is £15,000.
The majority of coastal car park surfaces are made of rolled stone chipping or recycled road planings as these represent the most economical means of maintenance within the funds available. Very wet weather combined with heavy use (weight of visitor numbers and commercial vehicles) means that these unbound surfaces will degrade to potholes very quickly.
Maintenance of these surfaces must be undertaken during reasonably dry weather and the normal round of annual repair works is undertaken between March and May. Additional repairs during the year are undertaken if funds allow.
Resurfacing with tarmac not only urbanises the appearance of the coast but is a much more expensive option over the life of the surface (as is the use of grid reinforcement) even taking into account the current need to regularly repair the existing surface.
The Department has undertaken repair of potholes during wet weather by using machinery to suck water out of each pothole before re-grading the car park to level the area. Unfortunately this was not successful. Even though the potholes were completely emptied of water re-grading the car parks when the ground water was very high simply produced a uniformly deep 'mush' which, although flat on completion, was deeply rutted again by the first vehicles that crossed it.
The Environment Department applied to the States for capital project funding to install surfaces to a number of coastal car parks to ensure they were fit for all year-round use (despite this being a more expensive option that the current practice). However due to the number of other projects of higher priority which had to be considered by the States the application for funding for car parks was not successful.
Contact Information:
Environmental Services Unit
Environment Department
Tel: 717200
