East Sussex resident waits seven months for unsafe footpath to be repaired

Robert Lanius said he fell twice whilst walking down a crumbling footway near Fairlight Field and decided to wait until East Sussex County Council resurfaced the path before using it again.

Robert said: “I am so grateful to Emily and Johnny for getting involved. I had already fallen twice when my walking frame got stuck in the holes, and when I had rung the council directly I just got passed around. The new surface makes such a difference.”

Green Party councillors on the Lewes District Council criticised the county council for their ‘unbelievable slowness’ in tackling these repairs.

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Emily O’Brien, Green Party Councillor for Ringmer said: “I am absolutely delighted this repair has finally happened for Robert, but the efforts involved make no sense.

"It took us months to get the county council to agree to do the repair in the first place - and then a further seven months plus and more emails and phone calls than I can count - to get a date for it to happen. The slowness is unbelievable.”

Green Party councillor Johnny Denis added: “This is a huge problem - for all road repairs, including potholes which are the single thing I am hearing most about from residents currently.

"The Conservative run County Council is failing residents and I will be calling for an urgent review of service standards.”

An East Sussex County Council spokesperson said: “As a highways authority we are responsible for the maintenance of 1,542 miles of pavements and cycleways and more than 2,000 miles of road, as well as hundreds of bridges, thousands of drains and road signs, 37,500 streetlights and nearly 2,800 miles of verge and hedges. Defects which present a safety risk and meet our intervention criteria are repaired as quickly as possible.

“While we sympathise with Mr Lanius, our assessment was that this defect did not present an immediate safety threat and the footpath was added to our prioritised programme of planned works and regularly monitored. The footpath was repaired on January 10.”