‘Have you noticed how bad the state of road surfaces are?’
Iwas reading recently about the plight of the users and residents of Hawthorn Road in Bognor, dubbed by them as the ‘worst maintained road in the county’. I found myself nodding in sympathy.
Have you noticed how generally bad the state of the road surfaces are in West Sussex? I’m frequently surprised I haven’t broken my suspension, wheels, tyres, bitten my tongue, lost a tooth or got a concussion after hitting a number of sizeable potholes.
I know the roads tend to get bad every year we have lots of rain and cold spells, with ice causing the road surfaces to crack and then split due to rain and heavy traffic, but this year feels like it’s a bit worse than previous years.
I also notice that some of the areas that are particularly bad appear to be on areas of road that have been dug up previously by utilities and patched up afterwards, so I have to wonder of the quality of the repairs by the utility companies that end up costing us the repair bill (via our taxes) as subsequent fixes become the responsibility of the local council.
In the past 10 years, West Sussex County Council has spent between £1.6m and £3.9m to repair anywhere between 16k to 28k potholes over the 2,500 miles of road it is responsible for, however, the statistics on its website regarding this have not been updated since 2019.
I would also like to encourage everyone to report any potholes to the local council. Provided they’re larger than 40mm deep (they won’t fix anything smaller) and for those bigger than 40mm deep and 150mm wide, they’re supposed to be fixed within 28 days and within five days if they’re bigger than 100mm deep and 150mm wide. If we all reported the potholes we find, we’d make sure none are missing, so hopefully they will be fixed quicker than they otherwise would.
If you do find that your vehicle has been damaged, you can (and should) claim the cost of repair back from either the council (for local roads, B roads and small A roads), or Highways England (for motorways and major A roads) and you can find the details on how to claim for damages on their respective websites.
Given the scale of the apparent problem this year, they’ll probably finish fixing the current crop of potholes in time for the winter next year to create a load of new ones! Maybe we should have a competition to find the worst section of road? My submission would be the Fishbourne level crossing…