Housing provider addresses Buxton rail safety hazard after parent raises alarm

Wooden fencing panels on Hassop Close, off Granby Road, were blown down during the succession of storms Dudley, Eunice and Franklin – opening up a gap to a 40 foot drop on to the busy Great Rocks freight railway line below.

Ben Tomlinson, a homeowner on neighbouring Sheldon Road, works as a shunter driver on the railway and immediately spotted the danger.

He said: “I’ve got five kids in my house, and 80 per cent of the residents have children, there can be a dozen out playing football on the street on any given day.

“The morning after the first barrage of winds I contacted Johnnie Johnson Housing, which owns the properties where the fences came down, and left a message asking them to come out and make it safe, even if they couldn’t repair it straight away.

“No one came to deal with it, so I kept trying and eventually got through to someone but they were difficult to deal with it was a really frustrating call. They were saying it wasn’t an emergency and they would have to get a surveyor out to make sure the problem was within their boundary.

“Finally, they said their maintenance team would be coming out on March 15 – that would have been three weeks when anything could happen. The potential danger was massive.”

As an indication of the risks, another fence panel, which had blown across the pavement, caused two minor injuries.

Ben said: “My son had to crawl under it to get a football and banged his head. Another five-year-old lad was playing on it and got a nail through his shoe.

“It was also just there, lying across the pavement, causing an obstruction for parents with pushchairs and forcing people to walk in the road.

When the Advertiser contacted Johnnie Johnson Housing on Wednesday, March 3, a maintenance team was dispatched to the site the next day to remove the fallen fence panels and cordon off the gap above the rail line.

A spokesperson for the association said: “Due to the recent storms, we’ve had a substantial increase in our repair calls and jobs and we’ve been prioritising these as they been reported.

“The safety and security of our residents and the surrounding community is always our top priority, and we always aim to act quickly in making any areas safe, whilst we wait for repairs to take place.”

They added: “We will be back on site next week to commence the replacement works and these will be completed within the next couple of weeks. As a further temporary measure, whilst we wait for the repairs to complete, we are actively looking at some temporary facing to go up as soon as possible in areas that are impacting the gardens of our residents to ensure everyone remains safe.”

“In these confusing and worrying times, local journalism is more vital than ever. Thanks to everyone who helps us ask the questions that matter by taking out a subscription or buying a paper. We stand together.” – Louise Cooper, editor.