£14k spent… But not a pothole in sight

Monday 16 December 2019

A government department has insisted it is not simply using up its budget at the end of the year, after completing a £14,000 “resurfacing project” on a car park without a pothole in sight.

Regular users of the car park at the top of St Michael’s Slip in St. Martin were recently greeted with a sign informing them that the car park would be closed for one day earlier this month.

The reason, the sign said, was to enable “resurfacing”, which, according to the Growth, Housing and Environment (GHE) Department, was completed in a single day at a cost of £14,348.91 as part of an annual programme.

But, much to users’ bafflement, this came despite the car park being in apparently good condition.

Pictured: The works cost over £14,000 in total.

Though seemingly in need of a repaint, the area was unhindered by potholes or cracks, leading to questions over the necessity of the works and whether they constituted a prudent use of taxpayers’ cash.

Writing to Express, one user queried whether the resurfacing project had been a case of “‘it’s the end of the year, and we must spend our budget’ syndrome”.

That suggestion was denied by the department when asked by Express, however.

Pictured: The car park in question.

Kevin Boleat, Assistant Manager of GHE Car Parks, said that the department operated on a trading account with a budget “specifically set for us”, before going on to explain that the works across the island were intended to be proactive.

He explained: “We have a yearly resurfacing budget and we look at our car parks each year to determine which car parks are in need of resurfacing, we normally try not to leave this to when we get complaints about potholes we just inspect the surfaces and determine if the surface will last much longer.

“With coastal car parks like this the main operating period is the summer months, so we would always look to resurface at the start or end of the year.”

Pictured: A sign put up at the time of the works.

Addressing the St. Martin car park specifically, Mr Boleat added that the works also aimed to resolve a problem for nearby houses. “This particular car park has been the source of concern from the neighbouring properties due to rain water flowing towards their houses, so as part of the resurfacing we have re-profiled the car park to run away from the houses to the existing drain holes through the sea wall.

"We will also be looking at enlarging these to accommodate more water.”