I’m Mr Pothole – here’s how Government can fix Britain’s terrible roads

THE potholes on a bend near my home were an accident waiting to happen, with drivers swerving to avoid them.

Polite correspondence with the council didn’t achieve anything, so I called the police 101 line and reported this danger to motorists.

3

3

Two hours later the crater had been tarmacked over.

That was ten years ago, but since then the national pothole crisis has just deepened and deepened so we are now at a point where almost half of our roads are crumbling.

This is an emergency and I am calling on our Prime Minister to finally take action.

Potholes are not just an inconvenience.

They cost lives and they are hurting the economy.

Government figures showed that every week one cyclist is either killed or seriously injured as a result of a pothole.

Having survived two tours of Afghan-istan, Royal Fusiliers officer Jonathan Allen died in 2010 when he swerved his bike around a 15ft-long hole near his military base in Wiltshire.

Statistics from the Motorcycle Action Group show that 70 bikers are either killed or seriously injured every year as a result of roads in a poor condition.

A new survey by car repair firm Kwik-Fit suggests that 13million vehicles are damaged every year due to these defects.

And according to the World Economic Forum the quality of our roads is worse than Azerbaijan, Namibia, Egypt and Ecuador.

This is a national disgrace.

Motorists are left wondering where the £50billion a year the Government raises in taxes from them is being spent?

It isn’t being put towards our highways, because only £1billion a year is allocated to their upkeep, plus £500million for the pothole fund.

This is a false economy.

It is estimated that road defects cost the nation at least £5billion a year due to holdups, damage to vehicles and the impact on small business.

The extra £200million allocated by the chancellor Jeremy Hunt to the “curse of potholes” in his most recent budget isn’t going to touch the sides of this funding chasm.

The Annual Local Authority Road Maintenance survey published this week reveals there is a £14billion roads maintenance backlog in England and Wales.

At the turn of this century it was £3.75billion.

It will take 11 years of work to give road users a smooth ride.

This is an issue which unites cyclists, motorcyclists and drivers.

When Sir Rod Stewart grabbed his spade and put on his hi-vis jacket to fix the wrecked road near his home last year he was a national hero.

If politicians want our vote they need to start rolling out the asphalt.

So far, all we’ve had is lip service.

We hear a lot from the Department of Transport about the £98billion HS2 rail line project, but not much from our Roads and Local Transport Minister Richard Holden.

He needs to spend less time posing in new trains and more time sorting out our roads.

After I gave evidence to the Transport Select Committee four years ago the then Transport Secretary, Grant Shapps, only talked about doing something.

Rather than the current Chancellor’s sticking plaster response, we need an annual resurfacing programme.

This is the approach of other nations such as Japan, which has a 25-year plan.

On average, each road in the UK is only resurfaced every 116 years, even though they are only likely to last for 20 to 30 years.

People blame frost and rain for potholes, but if that’s the case why isn’t every road breaking up?

The truth is that it’s those roads which haven’t been maintained that allow the water to undermine their integrity.

We also need to end the cutbacks in council road inspectors, whose job it is to make sure that utility companies lay roads properly after digging them up.

During a 25-year engineering career I excavated roads to lay gas mains and oversaw the reinstatement of roads in central London.

Around 55 per cent of potholes are associated with shoddy work carried by our broadband, water, gas and electricity firms.

The council has the power to force them to return and repair low quality asphalt but not enough of them do it.

Increasingly it is being left to us to hold back the pothole plague.

I go out measuring them, taking photographs and filing reports about roads which don’t meet legal standards.

This is virtually a full-time job. My wife says I am obsessed, but I reckon I am just passionate.

By nagging bureaucrats millions of pounds of repairs have been carried out.

Sun readers can do the same.

In England and Wales you can use what is known as a Section 56 notice to force the highways authority to make a road safe.

If you can prove the highway is ‘out of repair,’ which is damage greater than a couple of potholes, they have to take action.

A lack of funding isn’t a legal defence.

Imagine if everyone issued legal proceedings? It would force the government to dig deep into their pockets.

If, like me, you’ve had your fill of politician’s excuses, make your voice heard.

3