A few days ago, I alerted the council some potholes in my ward.
The reply was prompt, but disappointing:
“Our Supervisor has inspected the locations you have reported and found that the potholes do not currently meet the criteria for an urgent repair. The potholes are already recorded as CAT2’s and will be addressed by our Highways Infrastructure/Engineering Works teams when resources allow. Regular inspections in line with the road classification will continue to be undertaken and any deterioration in the carriageway will be dealt with within the designated time scales.”
These potholes will not mend themselves, so it means my constituents will have to keep running over these bumps in the road until wear and tear have turned them into CAT 1s, or enough cash has been accumulated to mend them, anyway.
It occurs to me that it wouldn’t cost any more, and save a lot of broken springs, if these potholes were repaired sooner rather than later. Perhaps, instead of having staff travelling around the county assessing their progress towards the required category, it might be more cost-effective to just turn a couple of labourers loose with a pickup, some tarmac and instructions to fill in any holes they find.
That would surely be more productive than employing staff to tell us there is no money to do the things people want, especially as it would save the council’s insurance fund paying out for all those suspensions wrecked by Cat 1.5 holes.
Failing that, in order to do your fellow road-users a favour, don’t avoid running through potholes. The more people that take them head on, the sooner will they qualify for attention.
Go on – take one for the team – you know it makes sense.