By Nick Griffiths

Last updated at 15:11, Friday, 04 January 2013

WINTER downpours have led to drainage problems in fields and hampered road repairs in some parts of Cumbria this winter.

Rain falling on saturated land flowed off onto roads, leading to difficulties in fixing potholes in the Eden Valley in as fast a time as other periods of the year, a report reveals.

But across Allerdale and Carlisle, the number of days it took to repair road defects after Cumbria County Council was notified actually went down by the end of the year, compared to results from the spring.

In Allerdale, the average was 14 days in April and 10 in December, while in Carlisle it dropped from 12 in April to seven in December.

Across that period Copeland stayed fairly steady, registering an average of five or six days throughout this part of the year.

In Eden, however, repairs took an average of nine, 10 or 11 days until November and December, when they took 20 and 21 days respectively.

A report to the county council’s local committee for Eden also reveals safety inspections are now being carried out at minor roads in every parish in the county every three months.

The report states: “The extremely wet weather conditions last year resulted in a much larger number of drainage problems occurring.

“In predominantly rural areas, such as Eden, rain falling on land already saturated simply flows off onto adjacent highways and it has proved difficult to deal with this excessive run-off.”

Reports have emerged of an apparent increase in potholes on Cumbria’s roads in recent weeks, with the council pointing to hard frosts in October and November ahead of the current relatively mild weather leading to road damage.

For the last six months highways maintenance crews have been carrying out routine visits to each parish and the report says feedback has been “generally very positive”.

These visits are being placed on a more formal footing from April, when, the report states, “each team will, as part of their routine visits to the parishes, undertake a safety inspection of all the non-principal roads within that parish”.

First published at 14:17, Friday, 04 January 2013
Published by http://www.cumberlandnews.co.uk