Ken in 1976

When I moved into the Park in 1956/7; the Avenue (with a line of poplars on the north side and many trees, mostly elms on the south side) had been very lightly surfaced in places - but no footpath surfacing at all. About every 12 months it became so potholed that it was really dangerous and cars could only crawl up and down the Avenue, dodging the potholes. I organised a small gang of 2/3 men (all Cheshire County Council workers) to come on a Saturday morning and patch up the potholes - I'd ordered the necessary bituminous materials from a local quarry for Saturday delivery. This worked well but it was after all only a temporary stop-gap. The wide footpath alongside no:60 in the Avenue was unsurfaced. I arranged to have this surfaced and then got a good quotation for surfacing all the road of the Avenue (using a Barber-Greene paving machine) with a layer of dense bitumen-macadam 2½ - 3 inches thick. We had previously tried (but not with my approval) a ½ inch thick cold asphalt surfacing around the circle and down to Mill Lane. However this started to break-up so I arranged for the whole Park carriageway, including the Avenue, to be surface dressed with bitumen and chippings. This very effective method consists of chippings laid on hot bitumen - it is a very cheap process and served the purpose. I remember getting permission from the owner of the Mill and temporarily storing the chippings on the site there - no development had taken place then. This surface dressing, which was repeated 2/3 times, and was successful in waterproofing and sealing the Park roads and maintaining them. When the development was proposed at the Mill, the developers wanted to take access to the site from the Park and David Docherty (no. 68) ; Mrs Jones (no. 21) and myself were members of a sub-committee to negotiate with the Developer. They agreed to pay a lump sum - I think it was £2000 - £3000 and to include a requirement for all the new owners/occupiers in the Mill scheme to be liable for whatever individual Park-rate was levied in Upton Park itself - this would have increased our income. The idea was to use the lump sum to completely re-construct - including drainage and one footway - the Park road from Mill Lane to nos. 18 &84 (the bend in the road). I surveyed this length of road and prepared specification and contract documents and invited tenders - the lowest was Flathers. At the AGM the proposed access of the Mill development was turned down and this meant we hadn't the money to reconstruct that part of the Park road - that has always been a problem - still "c'est la vie". The developers incidentally blamed the Park for back tracking - they had to re-organise their access as it now exists directly from Mill Lane . I found a copy letter in the files at Backford Hall (Cheshire County Council Highways maintenance Department) dated c.1933 from my father W.Starkie (Asst. County Surveyor - 1930-35) advising the then Park chairman Mr. Sabine on how to treat the road. His advice - similar to mine - had been to 'tar spray' it after sweeping (surface dressing with tar - or bitumen - and aggregate). In those days the costs was 2d or 3d per sq.yd. In the early '90s' we surfaced the footpath round the circle. The footpath of the Avenue - formerly just compacted earth - had been properly surfaced some years earlier. We used a company R.M.S. - Road Maintenance Services of High Legh near Knutsford - who had also carried out the road surface dressing from Mill Lane to Wealstone Lane and around the circle. Ken Starkie June 2000