Residents claim it is now ‘the best road in Britain’ after work to fix it
Potholes in a Cambridgeshire town had become so bad passing vehicles would set off car alarms, residents have claimed. Residents in March have praised the work that’s been done to repair roads after major concerns.
The county council is undertaking an “innovation trial” to find a long-term solution to repairing peat-affected roads and have allocated sections of roads to try new treatments. The first of these is a section of Upwell Road in March, from where it meets Sixteen Foot Bank up to Trinity Farm.
Deep soil mixing, chemical stabilisation and the use of alternative lightweight materials are being used to strengthen the road’s foundations. Alongside this, a section of Upwell Road from the roundabout with Cavalry Drive to Binimoor Road has also been resurfaced, and residents said it is now “the best road in Britain”.
Martyn Cross said: “It’s excellent, really, that’s all I can say – it was getting terrible with potholes but they’ve done a great job. That’s probably the best road in Britain now.”
The 66-year-old said parts of the country roads are in a “terrible state” where there is an especially high amount of peat. Peat soil lies underneath 40 per cent of Cambridgeshire, but in Fenland this is 97 per cent, with nearly all roads affected, according to the council. They said that repairing roads built on peat can cost four or five times as much as repairs to conventional roads.
Alastair Morton said the resurfacing of Upwell Road is “fabulous” and everyone is pleased with the end result. The 60-year-old said: “It was horrendous out there, there was so much rattling when trailers went past that my car alarm went off twice.”
George Saule, 69, said: “It’s made a lot of difference – all they need to do now is stop those great big lorries going through.” Malcolm Gray said the roads were “never designed” for the weight of the vehicles that drive on it today.
The 76-year-old said: “If you walk or drive around here, you will see that the telegraph poles all lean away from the roads.” He said a long-term solution to address the foundations of the roads would save the council money rather than doing patchwork repairs.
He said: “It would cost money, but in the long-run it would pay for itself and potentially save lives because driving down here is dangerous. If you aren’t aware of the situation you could easily end up in a dyke.”
Cllr Alex Beckett, chair of the county council’s highways and transport committee, said peat-affected roads are one of their “biggest challenges”. The Lib Dem councillor said the trial will test three different techniques on the same road to figure out what works best on cost and longevity.
At the start of construction in August he said: “We’ll be learning from this and taking that evidence directly to government to make the case for a fairer funding settlement that reflects the unique challenges we face. It’s all part of our drive to get Cambridgeshire’s roads back on track.”
The road improvement project is being funded through a £1.5m grant from the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority. Mayor Paul Bristow said he was “pleased” to see the trial get underway and that it’s “essential” to find effective solutions to the challenges of peat-affected roads.
He said: “Getting Cambridgeshire and Peterborough moving means investing in infrastructure that is resilient and fit for the future. By finding better solutions for roads affected by peat soils, we can reduce disruption, improve reliability and make the most of available funding by investing in approaches that deliver long-term results.”
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