HEREFORDSHIRE Council will commission an independent review into the delays and handling of repairs to the Fownhope road which will have taken more than a year to reopen.

County highways chiefs apologised earlier this year for further delays to the reopening of the B4224 road which is the main link between Fownhope and Hereford.

The road was severely damaged by Storm Dennis last year from Fiddler’s Green to Fownhope with a substantial part of the carriage way collapsing.

Transport bosses at the council had originally anticipated that the work to repair the road would be completed by the end of September.

However, after further delays they had then anticipated completing the roadworks in February but another setback means they are now on course to open this Friday (March 26).

Transport and infrastructure chief John Harrington apologised again today (March 22) for this and said council lawyers would commission an independent review.

“I am genuinely sorry and fully appreciate all the disruption this has caused residents,” he said.

“I know councils are very good at saying things like we’ll learn lessons moving forward.

“Very often that means nothing to the likes of residents or councillors, sometimes.

“And that’s why I’ve commissioned an independent review which I won’t control, our officers won’t control, and Balfour Beatty Living Places won’t control, and not even our acting chief executives will control.

“Our acting monitoring officer Kate Charlton will commission an independent company to come in and do this work.

“They will speak to people in the communities as well as technical experts.

“There will be no escaping any scrutiny on this.

“This is an important piece of work not just for the residents of Fownhope and Woolhope but for the council and how we operate and how we make sure we do things much better in future.”

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Kevin Braybrook, who spoke on behalf of Fownhope parish council, told today’s general scrutiny committee the council’s management of the roads as a “deteriorating asset” contributed to the road collapse.

“We feel that if the roads were managed and maintained appropriately the problems with the drainage that caused the water flowing over and underneath the road could have been anticipated.

“Work could have been done on an elective basis which would not have caused so much disruption.”

He also said it seemed there was a failure of oversight by the council in managing the programme their subcontractors were putting in place.

Matt Slocombe, speaking on behalf of Woolhope parish council, said residents felt it just took too long for the repairs to go ahead.

“We realise how precious funding is and it must have been quite a head scratching operation to work out how you were going to get this done,” he said.

He said issues over the Bellwin funding, the long timescales and why the council did not seem to get things done quick enough were the main concerns of local residents.