Councils are losing battle to fix dangerous potholes, says RAC

AS the UK basks in a prolonged heatwave, the Beast from the East seems a distant memory.

But the Arctic spell that froze the country in February and March has left behind a dangerous plague of potholes that councils are not tackling, the RAC has warned.

Pothole-related breakdowns reached a three-year high between April and June, with the motoring organisation receiving a total of 4,091 call-outs, the most for the second quar- ter of a year since 2015.

David Bizley, the RAC’S chief engineer, blamed the severe snow and ice earlier in the year for the rapid increase, and said councils did not have the funding to tackle the problem.

He said: “Our roads are still in a poor state of repair after the damage caused by the Beast from the East and the generally harsh late winter conditions the country experienced. Councils have been working hard to fix potholes and general road surface degradation but, despite further emergency funding from central government, their budgets are even more stretched than in previous years.

“Our figures demonstrate they are not winning the battle – and as a result, the safety of too many drivers, cyclists and motorcyclists is being put at risk.”

The warning comes after a woman died when she was thrown 60ft in the air while riding over a pothole on a steep hill in Cromford, Derbyshire.

Carolyn Dumbleton, 52, was cycling with her husband Ian when she accidentally rode over the six-foot wide pothole on July 8.

She hit a manhole cover inside the pothole and went into cardiac arrest.

According to her daughter Samantha, Mrs Dumbleton had been wearing a helmet but suffered injuries to her neck and spinal cord that caused a heart attack and brain damage from oxygen starvation.

Her daughter criticised the council for waiting four days to fill in the pothole that caused her mother’s death.

She said: “It has taken the council four days to fill the pothole since my mum’s accident and the thought of that makes me feel uneasy.”

The tragedy comes just one month after another female cyclist suffered serious head injuries while riding over a pothole five miles away.

More than £1million has been paid out in the past four years in potholerelated compensation. The AA president, Edmund King, urged councils to spend more money on road repair.