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Richmond pothole (road.cc reader)Is there a pothole crisis on Britain's roads?
Following reports on this website of the death of an 84-year-old cyclist and another story on an Oxfordshire pothole branded a "danger to life", a road.cc reader got in touch with photos of their own pothole-induced injuries.
The offending road defect in Richmond has since been fixed but left our reader with multiple injuries and seemingly points to a widespread danger on British roads.
Just last week the wife of 84-year-old Harry Colledge, the former president of Cleveleys Road Club and a "much loved" member of the north west of England cycling community, called on the government and local authorities to do more to repair potholes on the UK's "woefully inadequate" roads.
Mr Colledge died on Monday 2 January after the front wheel of his Claud Butler bike got stuck in a deep crack in a rural Lancashire road, throwing him off and causing serious injuries.
A police investigation has since been launched and local journalists noted visible damage to the road near the village of Winmarleigh, with lengthy cracks in the surface.
The comments of Valerie Colledge have today been echoed by Mark Morrell, a leading UK pothole campaigner dubbed Mr Pothole, who marked National Pothole Day (January 15) by urging road users to report dangers to the authorities, who Mr Morrell says need to do more to tackle the "dangerous menace".
> National Pothole Day: An interview with Mr Pothole (otherwise known as Mark Morrell)
"I am sick to death of hearing from government and authorities saying repairing potholes is a priority then do very little to tackle the issue of our failing roads network," he explained to Wales Online this weekend.
"Filling in potholes is a waste of taxpayers' money. Until there is a properly funded roads resurfacing programme put in place things will get worse. Over ten years ago a report stated badly maintained roads were costing the economy £5 billion a year.
#NationalPotholeDay 15th January. What can you do?#ReportPotholesSaveLives#ReportPotholesSaveInjury#ReportPotholesSaveDamage Complain to MPs & Cllrs about dangerous condition of our roads.
Post pics of potholes use #NationalPotholeDay tag @Mark_J_Harper pic.twitter.com/J3PZ41SfoE— Mr Pothole (@mrpotholeuk) January 11, 2023
"So at today's prices probably double that to £10 billion. If the government invested an extra £3 billion a year every year on resurfacing roads it would save taxpayers money in long run."
Mr Potholes comments came to a backdrop of concern from the RAC's head of roads policy Nicholas Lyes who said the wet weather followed by the coldest start to winter in 12 years in December is "the perfect recipe for potholes to start peppering the roads".
"There are too many occasions where potholes have been poorly patched up by cash-strapped councils which then return all too quickly. It’s frankly absurd that, as a country, we seem unable to get on top of such an age-old problem when roads play such an important role in people's everyday lives," he said.
Last week on road.cc we reported on the "atrocious" state of the roads in Oxfordshire which one cyclist said posed a "potential danger to life".
Tim Masters shared photos of the holes, saying one is "so deep I can park my bike in it", and it seems the problem is not limited to Oxfordshire.
On Friday, an Edinburgh man placed cones in dangerous hazards on West Coates Road in the Scottish capital, tagging Edinburgh Council in a tweet calling for "urgency" on defects that "could easily kill a cyclist".
"I only saw it at the last second and managed to avoid it but if a less vigilant cyclist or motorcyclist had not seen that, absolutely would have taken them off their bike and cause them serious injury, if not death," he said.
More than 400 miles away in Southampton a cyclist was, in October, left with three broken teeth and a £1,400 dental bill after a pothole sent him flying from his bike.
James Noel suggested the council needed to adopt "a duty of care" to improve the city's "very poor" infrastructure and road surfaces.
In the same month, we reported a coroner is to submit a report raising concerns about Surrey County Council's lack of action in repairing dangerous potholes, one of which caused a fatal cycling crash in June 2020.
> Dangerous pothole that caused fatal cycling crash was reported multiple times without action
The news came after it was found that the pothole was reported four times by members of the public in the month leading up to Charles Stringer's death after the pothole punctured his front tyre and he was thrown against an iron railing, suffering a catastrophic chest injury.
Dr Karen Henderson said there had been a "lack of reflection by Surrey County Council", management of potholes had not improved and asked for better steps to make inspectors aware of complaints, risk assessments and better communication between the contact centre and highways department.
All in all a fairly depressing picture, but we want to hear from you... (although we're pretty sure we already know the answer). How are the roads where you ride? Do you report dangerous potholes? If so, are they quickly fixed?
Dan joined road.cc in 2020, and spent most of his first year (hopefully) keeping you entertained on the live blog. At the start of 2022 he took on the role of news editor. Before joining road.cc, Dan wrote about various sports, including football and boxing for the Daily Express, and covered the weird and wonderful world of non-league football for The Non-League Paper. Part of the generation inspired by the 2012 Olympics, Dan has been 'enjoying' life on two wheels ever since and spends his weekends making bonk-induced trips to the petrol stations of the south of England.
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26 comments
Spending on repairs to local roads in the UK has declined in the last 13 years. That's because local councils have had budgets cut. The councils facing the biggest budget cuts tend to be Labour-controlled. Remind me, what political party has been running the country for the last 13 years?
I would suggest that "running the country" is being remarkably charitable unless followed by "into the ground"
Having recently moved from London to Edinburgh I'm appalled at the state of the roads in this beautiful city. Potholes on every single road, and this is not an over exaggeration it's a disgrace how the council have left the roads in such a state of disrepair?
Welcome! It is a beautiful place - and enjoy the traffic free paths if you're near them. The roads? Aberdeen, city of granite, Edinburgh, city of gravel.
Of course, it's just that terrible weather ... that we have every year. And it's just unfair that it mosly seems to affect roads. Especially just after people have dug it up. For utilities, for "patching", when the council do another "top dressing". Obviously with exception of the Leith Walk path - where they've started out with lumps, defects and holes to save time waiting.
A few terrain samples from today's ramble round the North West. Not the worst by any means as at some point I always give up on the game.
This is a challenge I can't resist- our Lancashire Lads can do worse repairs than that!
Have you thought about moving ?
Have you thought about moving ?
Not to Essex, I haven't. However, I must congratulate the excellent and subtle Detectorists for an excellent PR job on behalf of both the detectorists and Essex. However this doesn't completely counterract the egregious (don't complain- that's been on here recently) Essex Criterion to indicate a close-pass worthy of action: the Cyclist must wobble or brake. Even that doesn't compete with the Lancashire Criterion: there must be Cyclist Blood on the Road!
Essex ? Essex!!! Ill have you know it was filmed in Suffolk
thats why Toby Jones adopted some infernal West Country accent, cuz we all speak like that in the countryzide, though yes I know for the purposes of the show its set in "Essex", but its Suffolk really.
And see Road.cc could have even made a bike related story out of them https://www.eadt.co.uk/news/23026069.detectorists-superfan-meets-shows-s...
Well don't send them up here...
How about not building any new roads until we've fixed the ones we've already got.
Are you quite mad?
In Edinburgh we have a climate strategy - which doesn't mention anything about fewer roads or cars in the headlines (Yes - it does in the detail but it seems more "we hope that ..." than anything). It also mentions "decarbonising public transport". We also have a major housebuilding plan. Quite a bit on the edges of the city or beyond e.g. Blindwells, Cammo, West Craigs. How are all those people going to get anywhere? (Not sure about Blindwells but the others look like typical dormitory developments without a "centre" themselves. How's this great network of "zero carbon" public transport going to happen?
Quite clearly we're clearly going to build more roads both to connect these developments and to cope with the extra traffic!
Yes - it's still predict and provide. Possibly with a garnish of green salad, but business as usual.
Well, there's a crisis in every other public good, so why should roads be different?
Nothing whatsoever to do with 13 years of tory government. Definitely not. No. No, no, no, no, no.
Yes.
Fortunately cash-strapped Edinburgh Council is cutting waste by pre-installing pot holes on the new Leith walk cycle lanes.
I know, I know, "not finished yet". I'd certainly agree!
its more like at least 15billion now, the local government association (LGA) were quoting it was 12billion 6 months ago, and 10 years to fix if they got the money, as apparently the majority of bitumen used in the UK to repair potholes used to come from Russia so costs have ballooned more than just mere energy/inflation costs.
one thing I wish we would drop from the lexicon on potholes is stuff like "wet weather followed by the coldest start to winter in 12 years in December..." the wet weather and ice, and we havent had a bad winter this year weather wise at all, only causes potholes by breaking down surfaces that are already broken, either badly repaired from previous potholes which seems to the most common, or maintenance that hasnt been upkept.
Chuck in that volume of traffic has increased, and the average weight of vehicles is increasing, and thats where your pothole problems come from, not the weather.
'Fixing' potholes is like burning money. Save that cash, add to it and resurface is the most cost-effective approach as well as being the best for road users, although I hesitate to promote it as vehicles will just go even faster (above the speed limit).
YES!
Anybody from Stoke on Trent confirm this?
https://inews.co.uk/inews-lifestyle/money/introducing-jcbs-game-changing...
No but same machine sounds promising up t'north:
https://www.bordertelegraph.com/news/23249829.pothole-fixing-machine-pro...
No brainer surely, at £165k, 700 potholes in a 'few months' ?
Isn't repairing potholes what car drivers pay their RoAd TaX for?
At least, most car drivers that engage on online forums and comment sections seem to think so, judging by the typical comments left.
It would appear they need to pay more.
A lot more...
But but someone told me the cost of building roads (probably he meant "entire road budget") is more than covered by tax take from VED, fuel tax and VAT on cars and tyres etc.! How could it be there's a shortage of cash for this vital work?
https://rdrf.org.uk/2012/12/31/the-true-costs-of-automobility-external-c...
Obviously the particular budget to fix stuff is complicated in the UK (does government give councils too little money - or too much as they'll misuse it...?)
The chap's own answer involved "wasting money on bonkers cycle infra" and some other tropes I'll not repeat here...
its very complicated because local authorities (except London who get their money from TfL) are awarded highway maintenance money in several different ways from the DfT, including what they call block funding (which is the bulk of it), but there are incentive and challenge pots of money and local growth pots too, as well as the governments pothole action fund.
now all that money isnt necessarily ringfenced just for roads maintainence, I think only the challenge and pothole funds are, but certainly the block funding an authority can go spend it on social care, or cover some aspect they had a shortfall on in their budget elsewhere.
but it should be noted VED currently funds almost the whole strategic roads network budget,thats the 28billion one everyone quotes as the cost of funding roads, but its not the money we are talking about here.
Indeed. But we reduce to the bottom line of "I pay how much to drive, and you haven't even fixed the roads?"
Of course maybe this is a deep conspiracy to save some of the money we all currently pay to subsidise driving by saving money on maintenance AND putting some drivers off driving? Nope, that would be too smart...
it should be noted VED currently funds almost the whole strategic roads network budget
There we are then! VED evasion is an epidemic in Lancashire now, and DVLA and the police do nothing about it. DVLA, who is responsible according to the police, make a point of displaying a completely hopeless means for the public to report the offenders, and can't even catch the evaders who don't pay VED but get yearly MOTs- you can't get 'lower hanging fruit' than your own database!
yes, I really dont understand given the switch to "online" VED, DVLA just cant issue automatic fines for expired VED if the numberplate pops up on anpr. For sure you could add additional sense checks to make sure people arent being caught incorrectly, give them the old month grace.
But it seems crazy that the setup is unless the police stop you and check, you can pretty well just not bother paying for it, its no wonder then we see drivers with VED thats > 6 months out of date.
we see drivers with VED thats > 6 months out of date
6 months?!! This VW Crafter DX13 OPM had been without VED for 5 years 3 months when I saw it on the A6 on 28.11.22, and reported it to the police on the 29th. I didn't bother reporting to DVLA. The interesting thing is that when I checked again before putting the photo on here around mid December, there was still no VED. Now you will see that it has VED up to 1st June. So somebody has actually done something!!