Funding ‘injection’ needed to fix Maidenhead High Street pavements

Long-term improvements to the pavements in Maidenhead High Street will require a ‘sizeable injection of funding’ from Government grants or developers, a council meeting has been told.

At a Maidenhead Forum meeting on Thursday (November 13), the council’s transport policy manager, Dug Tremellen, gave councillors an update about the condition of footways in the borough.

Mr Tremellen said that pavements are ‘routinely inspected’ on foot, every two to four weeks for busy areas like Maidenhead High Street. Other less frequently used walking routes are checked every three months.

“That’s a reasonably good frequency of somebody having eyes on the street to catch problems early,” Mr Tremellen said.

He said people raised concerns about a section of the High Street between its junctions with Queen Street and St Ives Road where the footways are ‘narrow and undulating’.

Mr Tremellen said: “Painted lines and surfacing were introduced to widen the footway but in practice we know road users have found these unclear. Drivers have tended to park in that space as well.

“That was a quick and interim solution that hasn’t had the effect that was desired.

“For me, that really underlines that there is no quick cheap fix. Making improvements to the footways at this location will require a sizable future injection of external funding to fully relay and widen that footway.”

The council continues to use the Maidenhead Paving Masterplan, adopted in 2011, to fix safety concerns and improve footways.

The recent works at the southern end of King Street and the recently redeveloped area around the Waterside Quarter show how the plan was implemented.

Mr Tremellen said: “However, the council is reliant upon either developers undertaking work around their own development sites or else financial contributions from developers or Government grant funding to take forward these improvements.

“Work can only be undertaken as these suitable opportunities arise.”

A resident who spoke at the forum meeting wanted to know what will be done about ‘the very bad’ condition of the footways around Bridge Avenue, with cars often parking on the pavement.

Councillor Jack Douglas (Lib Dem, St Mary’s) said: “We as a local authority have no powers to do anything about it if the parking is legal.

“But along that stretch of road of Bridge Avenue where there are yellow double lines we can enforce [something]. It’s a matter of getting more enforcement [officers] down Bridge Avenue.”

Cllr Gurch Singh (Lib Dem, St Mary’s) agreed with Cllr Douglas and said that the pavements in that area have to be ‘spick and span’.

Cllr Singh: “It’s what we’re going to have to do. Go down there and slap some tickets on [the cars] and then there could be some behavioural change.

“What we don’t want is residents falling over because we’ve got a lot more senior housing around that part of town. We’ve got to be very careful. We’ve just got to be really on the ball here.”