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news
Harry Colledge (credit: Cleveleys Road Club)Wife of “much loved” cyclist who died after wheel got stuck in nine-inch pothole says government must do more to repair “woefully inadequate” roads
The wife of a “much loved” member of the cycling community in the north west of England, who died after his front wheel became lodged in a nine-inch-deep crack in the road surface, throwing him from his bike, has called on both the government and local authorities to do more to repair potholes on the UK’s “woefully inadequate” roads.
As we reported earlier this week, 84-year-old retired music teacher and father-of-three Harry Colledge was cycling on a rural road near the Lancashire village of Winmarleigh at around 11am on Monday 2 January when the front wheel of his Claud Butler bike got stuck in a deep crack in the road, throwing him off and causing serious injuries.
The former Cleveleys Road Club president was taken to hospital, where he died from his injuries. Local police have launched an investigation into the circumstances leading to the crash, with particular emphasis on finding a woman who stopped to give first aid at the scene.
> Cyclist in his 80s died after wheel got stuck in cracked road
The details surrounding the 84-year-old’s death have raised concerns about the condition of the road, with photos taken by a Lancashire Live reporter on Island Lane – the scene of the crash – showing visible damage and lengthy cracks.
The late cyclist’s wife, Valerie Colledge, has now said that both central and local governments need to do more to protect people riding bikes on damaged rural roads.
“Potholes are a horrendous problem for cyclists,” Mrs Colledge told the Telegraph. “Harry’s front wheel got stuck in a nine-inch-deep pothole. A local farmer told me she had complained to the council about the pothole, but nothing was done.
“Roads here are in a terrible condition. The lane where Harry died is used by heavy milk trucks, tractors, and lorries, so often subsides.”
> Cyclists hospitalised by loose gravel crash seek compensation from council
According to data from the Department for Transport, at least 425 cyclists have been killed or injured due to poor or defective road surfaces since 2016.
In October, a coroner’s report raised concerns about Surrey County Council's lack of action in repairing dangerous potholes, one of which caused a fatal cycling crash in June 2020.
Less than a month earlier, we reported that three Tamworth Cycling Club riders were left badly injured, one in critical care, and with an estimated £10,000 worth of damage, following a crash on a road the council admits was scheduled for repairs.
Cycling UK’s Keir Gallagher says that Mr Colledge’s death highlights the serious threat posed by potholes and road defects to cyclists, arguing that “our crumbling roads… are deterring many from taking up cycling”.
“Popping out for some exercise in the countryside shouldn’t be a high-risk activity: it’s time for the Government to get serious about the risk potholes pose, and to ensure local authorities have long-term funding to properly fix and maintain the local roads,” he said.
Jack Cousens of the AA added that cyclists face “the hardest of choices about whether to hit the pothole or swerve and hope they avoid other traffic”.
> Dangerous pothole that caused fatal cycling crash was reported multiple times without action
Rick Green, the chairman of the Asphalt Industry Alliance (AIA), which represents road repair companies, says that there is a stark contrast between funding for urban and rural roads, and that a recent survey found that £12 billion was needed to bring roads “up to scratch”. Green also told the Telegraph that a “longer-term funding horizon” would help local councils better plan their road maintenance.
A Department for Transport spokesperson said: “We continue to work tirelessly to improve safety, which is why we are investing more than £5 billion from 2020 to 2025 into local highways maintenance.
“This funding is allocated based on the length and type of roads – without any regional bias – and local authorities decide how to use it based on local needs.”
A spokesperson for Lancashire County Council has said that the local authority was “looking into the circumstances” of Mr Colledge’s death and was cooperating with the police investigation.
“A true gentleman”
Since news emerged of the 84-year-old cyclist’s tragic death on Monday, tributes have poured in for the “much loved” member of the cycling community in the north-west of England.
A former art and music teacher, the mainly self-taught musician was a stalwart of the Blackpool jazz scene and the long-time principal clarinettist for the Blackpool Symphony Orchestra, as well as being a prominent figure within Lancashire’s cycling community who served as president of his boyhood club and raced the Tour of Ireland.
“Harry started cycling at school, which he apparently took up to get out of playing rugby, and one of his friends there was [England World Cup winning footballer] Jimmy Armfield,” Gil Davies, the secretary of Cleveleys Road Club, told the Blackpool Gazette.
“He soon realised that cycling was quite enjoyable, and it became a lifelong passion with Cleveleys Road Club, touring, racing, and time trialling and trips to the track at Fallowfield, Manchester.
“Together with the club’s other famous member, Randy Allsopp, he represented the club in the Tour of Ireland.
“After a brief time teaching in Manchester he resumed cycling with Cleveleys Road Club in the 1970s. He was a vital member of the club for more than 50 years, always involved in organising social events and racing and later becoming President of the club.”
Davies continued: “His annual jazz nights at Scorton, attended mainly by the cycling community in the north west, were frequently sold out.
“He was a much-loved member, not just within Cleveleys Road Club but throughout the North West cycling community.”
After obtaining a PhD, lecturing, and hosting a history podcast at Queen’s University Belfast, Ryan joined road.cc in December 2021 and since then has kept the site’s readers and listeners informed and enthralled (well at least occasionally) on news, the live blog, and the road.cc Podcast. After boarding a wrong bus at the world championships and ruining a good pair of jeans at the cyclocross, he now serves as road.cc’s senior news writer. Before his foray into cycling journalism, he wallowed in the equally pitiless world of academia, where he wrote a book about Victorian politics and droned on about cycling and bikes to classes of bored students (while taking every chance he could get to talk about cycling in print or on the radio). He can be found riding his bike very slowly around the narrow, scenic country lanes of Co. Down.
Latest Comments
- rileyrg 1 hour 22 min ago
Added to the liberal use of "theoritically", the repeated reference to non bike use has this tagged as one of the poorest reviews I've read.
- Rendel Harris 1 hour 41 min ago
I too watch from flag to flag but I can only do that because as a freelance writer working from home I can have it on whilst I work, I appreciate...
- Spangly Shiny 1 hour 41 min ago
The freezing of fuel duty doesn't help poor people: genuinely poor people cannot afford to run a vehicle, so the freezeing of fuel duty is no...
- biking59boomer 2 hours 15 min ago
There are too many cars on the road. Our towns and cities are just not capable of handling the huge volume of traffic that hits them every day....
- bikes 2 hours 17 min ago
You can't just turn your head around; the footage has to be very clear to have even a tiny chance of the police doing something about it.
- biking59boomer 2 hours 38 min ago
The idiot I saw today cycling whilst looking at his phone and not using his handlebars could do with a bit of Japanese law!
- Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells 5 hours 29 min ago
I'm absolutely disgusted (again) by the court's decision, far too lenient and I agree, a life ban from driving motor vehicles was totally justified...
- wtjs 6 hours 26 min ago
It's warmer up here than it was on the Whitehaven to Sunderland C2C a month ago!
- Smoggysteve 6 hours 58 min ago
There has not been much real world thought been put into the electromagnetic pedals. The idea they can just unclip after a certain cadence is...
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25 comments
An oldie but a goodie.
https://www.bristol247.com/news-and-features/news/cyclist-breaks-collarb...
Bristol. You know, it seems like the road maintenance budgets might be evaporating...
Not to brag, but htis kind of thing just does not ever happen in the Netherlands. I have cycled 10's of 1000's of Km here and while we also have slipperly leaves, tree brances in the path after storms etc, we just dont have potholes or ruts in the road like in the UK.
Well, that's all well and good, but I bet you don't have sunlit uplands filled with freedom like we do here in good ol' Blighty. The collapse of our infrastructure and essential services is a small price to pay, as long as the bankers are making their money.
sunlit uplands
I think it's broad sunlit uplands, and you also forgot 'the Return of Empire'
And unicorns. Don't ever forget the unicorns.
(I gather we're going to breed them, and then sell their horns or something. It will be the next Great British Industry).
Great British battery-farmed chlorinated unicorn! Unfortunately no longer conforms to EU magic regulations so has to compete in other markets (Indonesia) with the cheaper Uruguayan unicorn.
Plus some ethically-reared organic ones from King Charles' estate firm that most of us can't afford.
Quite. We spent 2 weeks cycling in the Netherlands this summer past. Over the 500km we travelled I think we may have seen one insignificant pothole & a few cracks. I see way worse than that within 5m of my front door.
I think such do exist in NL, but they would perhaps be on the motor network, not teh cycle network, of streets?
@chrisonatrike I believe it is the 4th power of axle weight.
Do you have unicorns though? Bet you don't have special trade agreements with the Faroe islands, Liechtenstein, Kosovo and Albania! Oh...
Three immediate differences I can think of. First - most cycling is "on the road" in both UK and NL. However in the UK there are almost no networks of proper cycle infra (indeed there's not much at all). So we're normally using the main roads to get anywhere. These - I think - take more damage in the UK. Main roads mean higher motor vehicle speeds (normally at least 30mph and 40mph is not uncommon in urban areas), more heavy vehicles and likely more traffic in general in the UK (since we're not cycling...) So more damage by motorists braking, vehicle weight (damage is proportional to axle weight to some high power IIRC) etc.
Second I think there are fundamental differences in maintenance / street rebuilds in NL vs. UK. I'm hazy on details but the NL seems more coordinated. There also seems less evidence of lots of (usually private) interests digging things up - which is frequent in the UK. Also since there are pyramids of subcontractors and councils aren't great at monitoring this it leads to roads which are patchworks of repairs and these are often poor quality.
Third while work is ongoing in the UK the priority seems to be "maintain some motor traffic flow" and *maybe* accomodate pedestrians (although good luck if you've a disability). Cyclists? Nope. Push your bike, if you can.
Maybe we should be campaigning for King Charles to interfere more and exercise some Royal Prerogative (probably there's some law somewhere that the monarch actually owns everything) to demand the King's Highways are properly designed and finished? Here's what he could decree:
https://bicycledutch.wordpress.com/2020/07/29/cycleway-maintenance-and-r...
http://www.aviewfromthecyclepath.com/2010/08/road-works-vs-dutch-cyclist...
(More here: before and after, road surface and road works)
It's worth noting that the Netherlands has long been a leader in road construction technology and has pioneered a lot of modern road building techniques. So the country has roads that are built better and last longer than the UK.
Oh, and a better view of active transport too!
I'm always a little concerned at how keen NL is on (re)building - I don't think they are very eco. But their road infra is wonderful! Talking of road building I've never seen anything like this in the UK (not that we have comparable levels of paving) - are they used here also?
https://mashable.com/video/brick-paving-robot-roads-netherlands-patterns
https://mashable.com/video/brick-paving-robot-roads-netherlands-patterns
This has been declared as a work of the devil by Lancashire County Council's Pendle Witch-Watch Division, as it could affect the aim in the Mission Statement to render all repairs worse than the original defect within weeks
I don't think I've ever seen the roads as bad as they are currently.
The recent heavy rain following on from an extended cold snap is a toxic mix for poorly maintained roads, and recent rides have felt a bit like playing russian roulette. The speed in which new, and significant, pot holes have been appearing is frightening, and has affected my choice of routes / riding activities.
Like so many things currently, I fear local authorities have slept walked their way into a serious problem, one that will be very expensive to resolve.
My sympathies are with Harry's friends & family.
From personal experience in Glasgow I have found that it is hard to get the council to take long linear cracks/defects in the road surface seriously. They are of no/little consequence to vehicles & the roads engineers just shrug and prioritise repairs that may impact on motorists. In Glasgow our Saturday morning ride traversed a downhill 500m road section where a channel had been cut to install a cable. Much of the fill subsequently eroded out. I was always worried that that someone would get their wheel trapped. It took me many attempts at reporting the defect to finally get a half-hearted repair.
Yes - it's almost like they were focussed mostly on cost of compensating motor vehicle owners, no?
Also this kind of thing is actually pretty common because utilities often run along roads. (There's some story to be told here contrasting how we manage / regulate utilities / other street works - or don't - especially compared to other countries. That's a whole other rabbit hole in the road though).
Some of Edinburgh's most dangerous-looking sections (apart from the tramlines which have proved themselves a danger) are where the tarmac has degraded around utility access covers - you've both a slot to trap a wheel and a vertical chunk of metal.
I have this issue as well. Here in the fens linear cracks are really common about 0.5 to 0.75m in from the edge due to subsidence. I damaged a front wheel in one a couple of years back which the council refused to accept liability for. Their argument was that they check the road every month from a moving motor vehicle and they didn't report anything. A google street view picture taken 4 years earlier showed the crack I was complaining about.
I asked for information on how their inspectors were trained to assess the likely impact of a "surface defect" on vulnerable road users but got no response. Fundamentally it appeared that unless it was wide enough for a car to fall into they didn't see it as a problem.
My condolences to the family and friends of Mr Colledge.
The online pothole form for Hampshire asks you these two questions:
So it seems focussed on what's going to damage a car.
The questions used to ask about the size compared to various objects (dinner plates and tennis balls or something like that).
As much as councils may only care about larger motorised traffic, it is still their responsibility to keep the roads in good repair for all road traffic and they can very much be sued for damage to bikes caused by their lack of repair.
Are you able to still submit the form for smaller potholes or are they refusing to accept the information?
You can still submit the form, they just won't do anything in a hurry:
Use the optional text field to say that the defect is dangerous for cycles, that usually bumps it up in their risk assessment as if anything happens there is a clear statement that they have ignored.
The roads around Lancashire are horrendous. Lancashire County Council are bloody useless at repairing them. they come out, 'repair' a pothole, a few days later it is back and twice the size. They never resurface roads properly, they always seem to do a cheap job and scrape the surface off and top dress, which begins to fail in weeks. False economy. The road where I live, a main busy A road, was resurfaced this way in June, for about the tenth time since we lived here. It is full of potholes now, and huge waves of tarmac where the wheels of vehicles have pushed the surface dressing away.
Here is a picture of a pothole I took where I could stand my bike up in it, you couldn't see how deep it was until you stopped to look at it. Potholes like this are fairly common on our local roads. I have seen hundreds on my ride today.
Somewhere around the Trough of Bowland, Phil?
Looks like it could be the Trough of Bowland!
Looks like many here in Surrey that never get fixed or worse a repair is made and then a few weeks later the pothole is back and far worse. This from a council whose motto is 'leaving no-one behind'.