A quiet road in Compton has seen an outpouring of community spirit in recent years.
Park Road, a quiet cul-de-sac with just 29 properties, is partly maintained by Plymouth City Council, but the upper part is rough, unmade, unadopted and unmaintained.
Because it is an unadopted, or private, road the residents in that part have to carry out their own maintenance and upkeep of the road.
About 10 years ago the residents in the unadopted part decided to band together and form a residents association, the Park Road (unadopted) Residents Association.
They agreed to pool their resources, and time, and energies, and see if something could be done about the state of their road’s surface.
They started by organising working parties to try and cover over the worst bits with concrete. It was not uncommon for them to buy sand and cement and chippings, at their own expense and mix and lay up to a ton of concrete in a weekend.
They have also power washed a long wall, of the walkway in front of the bungalows, prepared and repaired lots of damaged rendering, coated it with a special stabilising solution, and then finally painted it with two coats of wall paint.
One of their projects was to install CCTV. There are five cameras, at two positions, so the road is very well covered. Already on at least two occasions they have been of great help to the police in catching opportunist thieves.
But, after several years, it became clear that repairing the road surface in this manner was both costly, and time consuming, and was not the answer.
Then one of the residents, with many years experience in the building industry, and up to date knowledge of modern processes, suggested a new approach, called resin bound.
This was much more costly than anything attempted before, running into thousands of pounds. But one resident decided to carry out this process on his part of the road, at his own expense, and with a little help from some other residents. The result was watched for several months to see how it would wear, and it was found to be satisfactory.
Then the second section of road was tackled, with a similar process, this time with all the residents contributing. and with a grant from the council, as it was a community project. The cost for this section was between £2000 and £3000 with all the labour given free by the residents themselves.
Recently the third section was completed – there are four sections in all – and the results are truly outstanding. The total cost, so far, is in excess of £7000, almost all of it raised by the residents themselves.
Park Road resident Paul Cox said:
“It’s not all been simply hard work, there have been other benefits. The occasional street party, when the residents and their friends, have let their hair down and enjoyed themselves.
“Then there is, perhaps, the most important benefit of all. That, what was, ten years ago, a road of individual residents has now become a real living community.”
During Covid restrictions one of the residents was ‘pinged’ and the family had to self-isolate.
So an email was sent round asking if anyone could help. Almost at once there was a knock on the front door and there was a neighbour holding out a testing kit.
Within five minutes a further four offers of help arrived.
A few years ago a Christmas card, with the following verse, was sent: ‘In this season of goodwill it is nice to remember how much we have achieved together and what a real community we have become.’
Paul added:
“Which just about sums up this, perhaps, unique road, set in a quiet suburb, of the biggest, and busiest, city in the south-west.”
