Arguments have been going backwards and forwards between a councillor and County Hall in a bid to get repair work carried out on the road outside St Albans City Hospital.

Frustrated county and district councillor Roma Mills has only succeeded in getting an assurance that partial patching work will take place on Waverley Road some time this year.

A full scheme to replace the road surface from Batchwood View to the Waverley shops will not happen until next year at the earliest – and even then she can’t establish when that will be.

Roma said this week: “People started raising this with me in March, April time. The road gets a high level of usage there and we have been arguing backwards and forwards.

“All I have got is that the worst part will be reinstated later this year and the second half some time next year.”

At one time local road issues went to the joint county and district highways committee but the committees were scrapped and replaced with a sum of £90,000 in councillors’ localities budgets which they could use for such projects.

Work on the entrance to the hospital is way beyond that sum and Roma voiced her frustration at the demise of a forum where people could see their petition being presented to the county council and there were open and transparent discussions about the merits of one road scheme over another.

She said: “I am really hacked off. I have trotted around with the highways officer, gone to the Ringway [county council highways contractors] manager and then gone to another chap who says other schemes have to take priority.

“I feel like piggy in the middle. There is a programme of work but no opportunity to be flexible when something comes up.”

Roma accepted that there was a lot of movement in and out of the hospital and repairs would be disruptive but she felt the state of the road had gone beyond micro-surfacing and vehicles could suffer damage if something was not done soon.

The county council has confirmed to her that there is no scope to bring the whole scheme forward to this year but Ringway would be carrying out some localised resurfacing to substantial patches of wear around the hospital entrance ahead of the winter.

The programme of repairs for 2015/16 would be worked out during the winter but no precise timetable or guarantee of timing could be given out.