Drivers more satisfied with Wakefield's road surfaces, but council pledges to communicate more

A highways satisfaction survey conducted by the council showed that 51 per cent of local drivers were happy with overall maintenance and repairs of potholes.

That's up from 49 per cent last year.

But the local authority has promised to communicate more about the resurfacing it does carry out on the district's roads.

Speaking about the issue at a meeting of town and parish clerks from across the district on Wednesday, Andy Bramall, from the council's highways department, said: "A lot of people say, "You don't tell us what you're doing".

"More communication, we do recognise is about us telling the public what we've done and the improvements we've made.

"We're doing a lot more in this area now."

The meeting was told that utility companies were sometimes to blame for roadworks overrunning, and that the council had issued fines in some of those cases.

Normanton councillor David Dagger said that the public needed to be kept informed of repairs, to avoid creating the perception that the council was dragging its feet.

He said: "People often look up a street light that's not been fixed and think, "Oh that's the council".

"There was a street light outside my old house in Normanton that was once out for about three months.

"But it wasn't a council problem, because it was a problem with the cable it was the YEB (Yorkshire Electricity Board), who were supposed to come and fix it.

"But because it was low priority it didn't get done. It is all about people's perceptions.

"We've got Twitter and Facebook channels, so there's plenty of ways we can communicate."

Local Democracy Reporting Service