A FREEZE is being imposed on non-urgent requests for highway schemes across the Epping Forest district, so that council officers can concentrate on projects already in the pipeline.

The moratorium which will be reviewed in six months has been sparked by numerous requests including speed reduction schemes, traffic calming, parking areas, resurfacing work and footpath patching.

A council report states that resources, both financial and professional, are "extremely limited" and that most of the schemes on the waiting list will not be developed in the short to medium term.

It adds: "Attempts are being made to provide additional professional resources by using county or outside consultants, but owing to the difficulties being experienced by all in the recruitment and retention of trained engineers, this too is proving difficult."

The council's traffic engineers are dealing almost exclusively with written requests for more schemes, many of them minor, rather than designing and managing schemes which have already been approved.

The report to Monday's executive committee said: "At this stage it is important that the approved schemes are designed and implemented, and the capital allocations spent.

"For this to happen the traffic engineers have to be freed up to work on these projects and not be deflected onto new schemes for which no capital exists, and in reality is not likely to exist for the foresee-able future."

The council currently has more than ten years' worth of maintenance schemes outstanding, with similar backlogs in relation to traffic schemes.

The council's head of enviromental services, John Gilbert, said: "Despite the difficulties, a lot of good work goes on and lots of schemes are being worked on and being delivered."

Councillor Stephen Murray said he was concerned that some requests would fall into a "grey area" and questioned who would decide, without a full investigation, which potential schemes were urgent and non-urgent.

Councillor John Knapman said a moratorium was a "sensible way forward".

"It has been a huge problem," he said, adding that the last time the full list of requests was considered, some 110 schemes were included, with funding available for only two projects per year.

"To tell someone they'll get it in 50 years is highly embarrassing," he said. "I think officers have had difficulties with this for a long time."

October 25, 2001 8:27