Aylesbury man blasts council over 'dangerous' street

A member of the public has challenged the council after it closed his report of “multiple” broken paving slabs “within the hour” which he claims are a ‘danger’ to walk on.

Mr Richard Conlon said there is “no way” parts of Cambridge Street in Aylesbury are safe, after Bucks Council ‘immediately’ shut down his request to replace a series of busted paving stones.

Mr Conlon said the street has “far too many” broken and “very unstable and dangerous” paving slabs, which present a “health and safety hazard”.

He said a “proactive approach” from the council was needed to ‘protect the public’.

He also suggested planting trees along Cambridge Street, from which locals “would all benefit from reduced noise and air pollution”.

But when the council issued an automated response to his online report “within the hour,” saying it had inspected the defect and ‘no repair is necessary’, Mr Conlon said: “There’s no way sections of that pathway could be classed as safe.”

He added: “How bad does it have to be before a proactive approach is taken to protect all pathway users? The street is a disgrace.”

Cllr Steven Broadbent, Cabinet Member for Transport, said: “As always, we are grateful to customers for reporting any suspected defects or other problems or concerns relating to roads and pavements.

“We were able to close this query rapidly as this pavement had already been inspected earlier in the week and the technician for this location knows it extremely well as they walk this route most days themselves.

“While we acknowledge there are some cracks in the paving, the formal inspection of Cambridge Street concluded they do not present a hazard which is why the query was closed down.

“We inspect Cambridge Street on a monthly basis and the technician will also continue to closely monitor the location. As ever, we would ask residents to continue to report defects using the FixMyStreet link on the Council’s website.”