ORANGE WANDS
Talking potholes at Suffolk County Council
Very useful visit to Suffolk County Council’s Highways Service Delivery Centre yesterday to discuss potholes and road quality issues in Ipswich. I know that the quality of some of the roads isn’t up to the standard we’d like in parts of the Town and I was keen to see what the County Council are doing to help tackle this issue.
The good news was that in the last budget Suffolk got £9.67 million to help improve road quality, much of this money will be spent on potholes. So far the County have purchase a new Thermal Road Repair System. There is no noisy drilling associated with this system meaning that work can be carried out during the evenings meaning more can be done quickly. The Council have a “report a pothole” website: https://www.suffolk.gov.uk/roads-and-transport/roads-pavements-and-verges/potholes/report-a-pothole/ – Which seems to have increased the responsiveness of the Council when it comes to filling in potholes and other road quality issues. Currently I’m distributing my transport surveys and I’m sure there will be a great many potholes flagged up!
Tom Hunt welcomes new SEND policy in Suffolk
Today (22/01/2019) plans were unveiled to pump £45.1 million into creating hundreds of special educational needs places in Suffolk in a bid to meet soaring demand.
In total 826 extra specialist education places will be created. There will be 3 new specialist schools and 36 specialist units attached to existing schools.
Responding to the news, Tom Hunt said:
“This is great news. I know from the visits to schools I’ve across Ipswich over recent months how important an issue this is and its very good news that despite the pressures the County Council budget is under they’re able to make this investment.”
“I know that Cllr Chris Chambers, who is Ipswich based and is Deputy Cabinet Member for Education at the County Council will fight to ensure that a good proportion of the money allocated for the whole of Suffolk will be spent in Ipswich where the need is significant.”