‘Scandalous’ pothole repair lasts only nine days before crumbling
A pothole repair lasted only nine days before it crumbled, a council has admitted.
Pete Munro, a plumber and resident of Three Oaks, in East Sussex, took a picture of the freshly Tarmacked surface soon after council contractors had filled in the pothole.
As an experiment, he went back to the spot two days later to take a comparative picture – which showed that large cracks had already started to appear.
The 49-year-old returned again 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 it 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 local council road maintenance in England dropped by 45 per cent last year compared with five years ago.
There were almost 630,000 potholes reported to local authorities across the country, costing drivers as much as £500 million 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 often walks around the village to look for potholes to report to East Sussex county council. On his last visit, he counted 19 that needed logging.
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.
“It’s a shambles. They can’t be repairing potholes properly because they are failing so quickly, and the contractors have to go back and fill them in again. They are chasing their tails. It’s no wonder why there are so many potholes in our roads.”
Mr Munro posted his photos on social media and wrote: “This is a permanent pothole repair between Three Oaks and Westfield. We will never have safe roads while ESCC [East Sussex county council] allows our roads to be repaired like this.”
In reply, Guy Harris, from nearby Rye, wrote: “This is a powerful commentary. It’s a painful display of our money being poured into a bottomless pothole.”
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.”
