A graffiti artist in Surrey has been painting penises around potholes apparently in the hope that it will prompt the county council into taking action to repair the road defects.
It seems that the unknown artist has drawn inspiration from the self-styled Wanksy, who employed similar tactics in Bury a few years back to get Greater Manchester to fill in potholes.
The ones in Surrey appeared last Sunday in West Molesey, reports Get Surrey.
Local resident Sam Parkhouse, who took a picture of the pothole pecker, said: “It would be great to get these potholes filled in. In fact the whole road needs ripping up and starting again.”
But Surrey County Council says that rather than painting phalluses on the road surface, it would rather people report potholes online.
“Rather than reach for the spray paint, it is more effective to report potholes online through our website,” the council said.
“We have already resurfaced hundreds of miles of Surrey’s roads through our Operation Horizon programme, but because of reducing funding from central government, it is getting more difficult to carry out improvements to our roads,” it added.
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24 thoughts on “Pothole penis painter pisses off council”
So what they’re actually
So what they’re actually saying is they’re dicking around and it’s going to get worse. Would love to see a list of these hundreds of miles of roads, I’ll bet the majority start with A…
That would almost certainly
That would almost certainly not be deep enough to be filled. If you must resort to things like this ask your council for their intervention depths before wasting money on a can of paint. The gully should be cleared.
spen wrote:
but the council will fill it whatever the depth to cover the penis, therefore graffiti artist achieves his objective whatever the council’s guidelines.
Deeferdonk wrote:
If it makes the hole more visible, it is not wasted paint
Deeferdonk wrote:
bloop
spen wrote:
No doubt leading to the damage around it as the water can’t drain away and then freezes.
Simple cause and effect but dumb Councils don’t work very logically.
A genius bit of civic
A genius bit of civic activism.
Might have a better chance of
Might have a better chance of seeing the pothole with it marked by paint
surely if he wants it filled
surely if he wants it filled in he should paint vaginas?
What a load of cock and balls
What a load of cock and balls …
It’s mostly an issue of
It’s mostly an issue of chronic underfunding and the ever-rising cost of elderly care that’s reducing our roads to third-world standards. Then there’s the increase in the number and weight of vehicles. Neither of those are going to change, and likely to get worse. But also I’d bet that if you could find old photos of town and county halls, and specifically the cars parked in the reserved spaces outside, you’d see very few plush 4x4s thirty years ago, versus virtually nothing but now. Potholes have to be deadly to cyclists before they’re even perceptible as slight bumps through the suspension systems of those things.
handlebarcam wrote:
Turn the elderly into tarmac when they shuffle off this mortal coil, and use them to fill the potholes. Soylent blackstuff.
There isn’t enough time or
There isn’t enough time or paint to do that to every pothole on my commute to work.
So reporting online would get
So reporting online would get them dealt with quickly too, would it?
Hmm….
STiG911 wrote:
Only one way to find out, paint one and report another, see which gets done first; and don’t forget to share the results.
Grahamd wrote:
Don’t think I’ve used Surrey’s but council sites I have used give you no (or no useful) record of what you’ve reported. That means you can’t prove you did report it, which means they can’t be expected to fix it. And if they don’t have to, well…
Better to use http://www.fillthathole.org.uk. No juvenile connection with painted penises implied.
Grahamd wrote:
My experience of reporting trailer loads of dumped garbage and road hazards is that official channel report gets fixed, usually, in around two to four weeks. Sometimes simply ignored. But without fail, if you call the council out in a public sarcastic twitter post with a photo it’ll be fixed in 24-48 hours.
They’d prefer you use official channels to avoid the embarrassment, not to expediate the process.
ajft wrote:
Don’t forget to include https://twitter.com/LGOmbudsman when Tweeting, they like to know these things. Councils don’t like them knowing these things.
Im still using the ‘fill that
Im still using the ‘fill that hole’ app. Getting holes repaired within a week on average.
Actually had a hole around a manhole repaired last month and the repair had failed in a day (due to very large digger being delivered on the road that day no doubt). Reported again and the manhole was coned off within a day, and fully repaired with new manhole cover by the end of the week.
As a Surrey resident, I am
As a Surrey resident, I am not looking for “improvements to the roads”. All I’m after is some simple maintenance!
What kind of an aerosole
What kind of an aerosole would do a thing like that?…
I remember
coming acrosscycling past this cockhole about 18 months ago in Betchworth, Surrey. It made me chuckle and luckily did it’s job of highlighting the pothole (at least to road users, if not the council).Not necessarily the same artist, but a half-decent repro …ductive organ.
DomS-tique wrote:
Bravo!
/thread
DomS-tique wrote:
Pointing in the correct direction of travel too. You have to respect that sort of attention to detail.
It looks like it needs a good
It looks like it needs a good filling. And the gulley needs a poke too.