West Northamptonshire Council 'considering' aesthetic repairs for 'appalling' changes to Victorian-era pavement in Phippsville

West Northamptonshire Council (WNC) has confirmed it is 'investigating' the possibility of aesthetic repairs 'next year' for Victorian-era pavements in Phippsville that were reportedly chopped up to fit fibreoptic cables back in November 2021.

The update comes after residents of Phippsville complained in droves about the 'sheer destruction' of the late-Victorian paving stones that were then replaced with an 'appalling' black strip of tarmac by CityFibre, in the words of Bob Purser, Labour councillor for Abington and Phippsville at the time.

One resident, Marianne Avery, even reached out to MP for Northampton North Michael Ellis, who made an enquiry on her behalf last week.

A WNC spokesman said: "The council is aware of some residents' concerns about the reinstatement of pavements by City Fibre and we have inspected the works and met with City Fibre to understand the position.

"Prior to City Fibre laying the cables, many of the slabs towards the edge of the pavement were in a poor state of repair, possibly due to cars parking partially on the footpath.

"The Highways Authority is not able to instruct a Utility Company like City Fibre to replace (at their cost) slabs where these were previously broken.

"However, the council is currently considering its options to potentially improve the condition of the pavements and as part of this we are considering the associated costs and the implications for elsewhere in the council’s area, since only limited resources are available."

In a separate email to Ms Avery, seen by this newspaper, the council said: "Going forward, City Fibre has agreed to replace broken slabs with new slabs at their expense (capped). However, the Highways Authority is unable to instruct them to do this at locations they have already completed without technical fault.

"However, given residents' concerns, the council is considering the potential to carry out works next financial year to remedy the aesthetics and is investigating the cost of doing so.”

The council also said that, because the pavement is in an 'acceptable standard of repair' and 'safe to use' the priority goes to other pavements that have 'greater need', namely those with 'technical' issues and might make them less safe as a result.

Ms Avery said in response: "As a resident of Birchfield Road I value the look and feel of the street as well as the community spirit.

"I would dispute the claim that the utility company in this instance have removed exclusively 'broken slabs'.

"A few slabs were broken but certainly not all of them to warrant the slabs all being cut and replaced with tarmac. In some photos I have submitted in my complaint, you can see that the slabs that were cut in half were not all broken."