County Councillor updates Ockbrook residents over work to repair pot hole and crater covered local road

A county councillor has taken to social media to apologise to residents of Ockbrook about the ever decreasing condition of a major and busy road through the village.

Wayne Major, who also represents Risley, Sandiacre and Stanton-by-Dale apologised on behalf of the authority to everyone who has had to navigate and deal with the condition of Green Lane, which is heavily used by traffic including goods vehicles travelling between the A52 and the Stanley storage depot and to the north of the borough and county.

Councillor Major described the conditions for motorists and other road users as "extremely challenging" and said that the road was resurfaced seven years ago but that this had failed, falling into what he said had been "an unacceptable state for some time".

He added that the process to deal with the matter had been "difficult", and that there had been commitments from the relevant department at County Hall to resurface the road for some time, and it had therefore been quite right for people to ask him for details of a long-awaited resolution to the problem.

However, he said that testing had now been completed and confirmed that the road fabric below the surface was that of an old cobble-stone road which had since been covered in coal tar and that this was the surface that had failed and was therefore a likely reason why the surfacing that was subsequently applied seven years ago had not held up to subsequent use.

His social media post said that to properly fix Green Lane, a complete reconstruction was required, that the budget for this work had been allocated and a tender process was about to begin.

Councillor Major added that the project was one that Derbyshire County Council could not handle using in-house teams, and that, due to the nature of the work, the ability to carry it out was weather dependent and therefore could not be done during very wet or freezing conditions, and suggested that work was not likely to start until the late part of the first quarter or the early second quarter of 2025.

Derbyshire County Council contractors will be putting up signs to inform users about the planned work described as "significant".  Councillor Major said that he would be receiving regular updates as the process continues and promised to share them publicly as soon as possible.  In the interim, he said that contractors will continue to carry out temporary fixes on the surface over the course of the Winter in order to keep the road safe and thanked people for their patience during this time.