‘Scandalous’ pothole repair crumbles after nine days
A POTHOLE repair lasted only nine days before it crumbled, a council has admitted.
Pete Munro, a plumber and village resident, took a picture of the freshly Tarmacked surface soon after council contractors had filled in the pothole in Three Oaks, East Sussex. As an experiment he returned two days later to take a comparative picture which showed large cracks had already appeared.
The 49-year-old returned three days later to find even more cracks and a small hole in the repair. On his final visit nine days after the job was completed he found the hole had deteriorated, and reported the pothole for repair again.
Mr Munro said the episode was an indictment of the state of Britain’s broken and neglected roads. Last month, the RAC revealed that council road maintenance in England had dropped by 45 per cent last year compared with five years ago. Almost 630,000 potholes were reported to local authorities, costing drivers as much as £500million in repair bills. Residents called the repair job “scandalous” and accused council officials of “pouring taxpayers’ money down a bottomless pothole”.
Mr Munro said he walks around his village to look for potholes to report. On his last visit he counted 19.
He said: “Ironically, the pothole on Moor Lane I took photos of was not on that list. I saw some contractors repairing this pothole. It took them less than a minute to do. A couple of hours after they left I went and took a picture.
“At that moment I thought this would be a good opportunity to see how long the repairs last for. I just had a feeling this one wasn’t going to last long.”
A spokesman for East Sussex county council’s highways department said: “We are aware of the failed repair on Moor Lane, which was identified through our regular quality inspections. Whilst it is regrettable that this pothole repair has failed, we have instructed our contractor to return and carry out a more substantial repair.”