Resident calls for work on Pagham Road after survey

Giles Binyon walked a section of Pagham Road in February and used signs to record damaged areas or holes at six points on the road verge, documenting the damage with a series of photographs.

His findings, which he sent to the highways department of West Sussex County Council, prompted repair work to be scheduled.

On September 9, Mr Binyon repeated the survey to see how the verges were faring on the road, which he said is known locally for having ‘excessive usage’ from all types of vehicles.

He revisited all sites previously photographed, locating them using GPS.

He said: “Only one repair is worth its salt.

“Two of them hadn’t been repaired at all,” he added.

He said the three other sites appeared to have been filled with ‘loose fill aggregate’ that had ‘dispersed’ to a similar depth found in February.

Mr Binyon has sent the findings to the council’s highways department.

In his correspondence, which he copied to The Observer, he said: “One does not have to be a road engineer to realise that this kind of damage is indicative of a road that is, not only busy, but just too narrow to cope with vehicles using it.”

Mr Binyon, a member of PAGAM (Pagham and Aldwick Greenfields Action Movement), a group that aims to inform people of the issues of building a large numbers of dwellings on agricultural and greenfield land, carried out the latest survey after a public meeting in May where he says Arun’s director of place, Karl Roberts, said more than 1,200 can be built in Pagham as highways authorities have raised no objections.

He has called on the county council to act on the ‘dangerous condition’ of the road. He said: “Your department must ensure this road is urgently upgraded, or failing that, that no extra traffic load is imposed and immediate steps taken to reduce the numbers and size of vehicles that use it.”

A county council spokesperson said: “Repair work was carried out to approximately 300 metres of roadside edging in Pagham Road on April 12. In the four months since then, it is quite possible further deterioration has occurred and this will be assessed by our highways officer during the monthly safety inspection, which takes place on or around the 22nd of the month.”