Pothole Chaos
One week of freezing weather in mid December combined with heavy rainfall led to a huge number of potholes opening up across Nottinghamshire and, since then, the County Council has admitted it is "firefighting" just to bring the roads up to scratch.
This undermines the County Council's claims about the improved state of the roads. Last year road maintenance shifted from the short lasting "Viafix" asphalt repair to more permanent area resurfacing. With £15million extra funding, road patching more than doubled, with the Council promising "the right repair at the right time".
However, recent winter weather soon reopened potholes as well as creating new ones and also tore whole chunks out of roads. Main roads were badly hit. Complaints to the Council doubled with motorists facing damaged tyres and other costly repairs.
Responding, District Councillor Malcolm Brock said "Without significantly more investment, which the County Council seems unable to afford, roads in Nottinghamshire will not return to a decent state for a very long time"
Local Election Results May 2023
A spectacular set of elections both nationally and locally here in Newark and Sherwood!
Overall Lib Dem gains were 405 nationally, which posed a problem for Sky News, whose swingometer apparently was not able to contemplate a set of gains of this magnitude. We exceeded 'Exceeded Expectations'!
Our local gains at the district level saw the addition of our third District Councillor with the victory of Keith Melton in Trent Ward. We also kept 2 of 3 councillors for Southwell, now Karen Roberts and Peter Harris. We were encouraged to see the increase in our share of votes in other seats where we were able to field candidtes. Congratulations to everyone.
We had a very good performance in Southwell Town Council, gaining 10 of the 14 seats for which there were candidates, with 6 of these won in elections and 4 being uncontested. Two Conservatives, one Labour candidate and one Independent were also successful. One place on the council remains to be appointed to.
The Conservatives had a terrible set of district and parish elections, losing about half of their district councillors and many PCs. The final DC result was Conservative 14, Labour 11, Independents 11 (8 for Independents for Newark and 3 for other Independents) and Lib Dems 3. Discussions will take place for some time on the composition of the new administration, which is unlikely to include Conservatives for the first time since 2007.
On behalf of the executive, we are extremely grateful to everyone who stood as candidates, as well as everyone who performed the various roles which were necessary for the campaigns. We are a small party and many of you worked very hard.
We are very grateful for their past work to councillors who have stood down at this election, including Peter Scorer and Stuart Thompstone. Malcolm Brock has stood down from the District, though continues to serve on Southwell TC.
We welcome new members to the party, who were motivated by this campaign. This phenomenon was particularly marked in Trent Ward. Upton support has to be singled out, evidenced for anyone who drove through, by the huge number of LD stakeboards and posters.
Philip Barron
Chair, Newark Liberal Democrats
7 May 2023