The Courier & Advertiser (Angus and Dundee)
Astronaut added into ‘lunar landscape’ pothole pictures
AFife village is like a lunar landscape where even the potholes have potholes. That’s the verdict of Lewis Heaney, who has Photoshopped an astronaut into a picture of one of the worst streets in St Monans to highlight the issue.
Lewis has been documenting the state of the roads in the East Neuk community for several months in a bid to prompt Fife Council into action.
He has photographed more than 100 holes in the tiny village, which only has around 20 streets.
He has Photoshopped a diver into one of the deepest ones.
And he has doctored another image to look as though the road has been hit by a flaming fireball.
One of the photographs even appears to show a shark swimming in a puddle-covered pothole.
The community council and local councillors are behind Lewis’s efforts, claiming their calls to the council have been ignored.
However, the local authority said the weather has hampered its efforts to fix the holes.
Lewis, a private caterer for wedding venue Pratis Barns, has been annoyed by the issue for some time.
“I contacted the council plenty of times but there was no action,” he said.
“They came and patched one on Station Road.
“I think they thought that’ll stop them moaning for a little while.
“But what I was doing was gaining traction and people were stopping me in the street to ask about it.”
The council resurfaced a section of West Shore before Christmas but Lewis described it as “a pretty poor attempt”.
He now intends to keep taking photographs until all the potholes are repaired.
“The village looks like Normandy, that’s how bad it is,” he said.
“I went to the community council meeting on Monday and they were unanimous that we need action.
“It’s getting to the stage where the potholes will cause a lot of damage to cars.”
Independent councillor Linda Holt and her Liberal Democrat colleague Bill Porteous agreed the roads are in a deplorable state.
Ms Holt said even the speed bumps have potholes.
“It’s partly weather, partly Covid-19 but it’s also years of neglect,” she said.
“We haven’t been spending enough on roads maintenance for years.
“We have more potholes than roads at the moment.”
Mr Porteous said Lewis’s photographic campaign was excellent.
“For far, far too long St Monans and other communities in the East Neuk have suffered from poor roads,” he said.
“Fife Council has turned a deaf ear to residents, visitors, community councils and Fife councillors alike about the deterioration and potholestrewn streets. They are a danger to pedestrians and road users.”
Fife council service manager Martin Kingham said reports of potholes in St Monans have been passed to the repair team.
“Although we’ve been hampered by the weather, we expect the worst of these potholes to be repaired this week,” he said.
“All reported roads defects are inspected and assessed to make sure that we take appropriate action to deal with any risk they present.
“The best way to report a pothole is by using our online road reporting form which will provide feedback on the action we take to the person who reports the issue at fife.gov.uk”