Damaged Street Signs – latest

Swallowfields sign

In July I reported a damaged street name sign in Swallowfields to discover that the lead time for repairs is six weeks and that because of staff shortages work was often taking even longer. I raised this with the Cabinet member responsible at yesterday’s council meeting and got the following response.

 A six week lead time is typical because signs are ordered in bulk on a six week cycle. Approximately 35 signs are repaired and 80 replaced every year at a cost of £3000 pa (£85 per sign) for repairs and £10,000 pa (£125 per sign) for replacement.

Council officers are required to survey damaged signs before further damage is done and pro-actively repair signs where possible. Doing so saves the council £40 a time and prevents the area looking run down. Because of staff shortages this service has not been provided for several months. Now that extra staff have been recruited it is hoped the service will return to normal once the backlog of work is cleared.

For the future I would advise residents to report all damaged signs as soon as possible so that repairs can be undertaken before the signs  are damaged beyond repair.

Damage should be reported to Test Valley Borough Council on 01264 368000 or direct to me.

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