Worst paving defects in centre of Chichester to be repaired

Currently a number of areas in the city centre have loose, raised or uneven brick paving.

An inspection carried out by West Sussex County Council’s contractors earlier this week has seen the worst defects marked with dots of white paint to await repair within four weeks.

However the authority has confirmed the potential for a working group to be set up to consider long-term solutions to the precinct’s issues and commission a consultant to design a variety of options.

If funding is approved for 2020/21, this group would include representatives from the county, district and city councils.

A county council spokesman said: “This process is in the very early stages of development, so any improvements will take some time to be realised. Meanwhile, we will continue to carry out routine inspections and respond to customer concerns, arranging for safety-related repairs where required.”

As part of the county council’s duty to ensure the highway is safe for all users, it operates a regime called Safety Plus.

Under this it carries out a programme of driven, walked and cycled inspection regimes for all roads, footways and cycleways, with the frequency varying depending on the type of road.

Safety Plus sets out the type of highway issues WSCC would repair, what level it considers safe to leave until the next programmed inspection, plus the time it has to undertake a repair.

High footfall areas such as Chichester city centre are given a monthly, walked inspection and the last one took place on Tuesday January 28.

On Tuesday contractors identified a number of defects in Chichester which will be fixed within 28 days, but given this is a high footfall area, they will ‘endeavour to get the repairs done much sooner’.