Potholes, potholes, we need to sort your potholes, potholes

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Local elections and there’s a lot of talk about potholes.

Maybe I’ve lived a charmed life but potholes aren’t something that bother me. I’ve never seen a pothole that caused me lots of concern; I’ve just driven round them if they’re large and obvious.

Local politicians are obsessed with them though. Am I out of the loop here. Is everyone else kept up at night by potholes?

AIBU?

That's horrendous. There was a nasty accident on a road near us not long ago as someone hit a pot hole and ended up on the wrong side of the road. They are so dangerous.

I get it - it’s something that’s obvious and, at first sight, appears easy to fix.

The reality though is that, like everything else, councils are desperately short on cash and will get massively criticised for raising taxes any more than they absolutely need to. No sane person is going to prioritise fixing pot holes over ensuring schools or social services receive vital funds.

Come back when you've just forked out for 4th new tyre in as many months.
They're particularly dangerous when it's dark and you can't necessarily see them in time to slow down sufficiently. There are even some bad ones on the motorway round here which is a disaster waiting to happen.

our Country lane no longer has potholes because the entire lane has worn back to hardcore. Several villages have pothole teams who fill in the smaller potholes on the lanes all council approved and receive their funding from the parish council.

The road outside our house is Lancs, a Reform council. Craters you could lose yourself in along it.

The council area our house is in is bad, but not as bad as Lancs.

No they don’t help.

They also crack pavements & create trip hazards (especially dangerous to the elderly - this has been an issue near me in the elections although pavement parking isn’t really talked about (London has rules on this but my area doesn’t).

I wish we could talk more honestly about this - if we want heavier cars then we need to spend more on repairing the roads & we need to avoid parking them on pavements. I also wonder if Highways England could forgo some of their road expansion schemes & be tasked to help councils with the resurfacing.

Our Labour Council is spunking millions on "levelling" curbs on our high street, that they want to pedestrianise against the wishes of businesses, and enabling the building a shit ton of £450k 2+bed housing developments advertised to Londoners. Pothole fixes don't last and come Autumn, the same holes will be in the same places that we need to swerve.

Wow! You actually had a real policy?

Ours just say something along the lines of "the other parties smell and they sold their dad for dogmeat" then they retract the latter in very small letters...

Potholes are bad here - I've spent £400 or so on x3 punctures in 12 months. Not my top voting priority but it is up there. All road repairs here are contracted out to a company who performs really poorly and no one ever bloody checks their work so they rake it in as the roads crumble around us.

I'm going to name a village and see if anyone here knows it!
Wardington on the Northants Oxfordshire border.

I don't live there but drive through often and the holes on one side of the road are large enough to almost swallow a traffic cone !! I know they are exacerbated by an underground spring but these holes are just left for months.

The road into our village is appalling and all the locals swerve around the holes and gouges in the road so routinely that it's now just the done thing to pull over while folks negotiate the holes on the other side! 🙄

It doesn't seem to make any difference which party MP you have or which council you have, there is no difference when you drive in different areas, the potholes are everywhere.

Terrible here in Hertfordshire - even worse after the rain this February. This is due to austerity - unfettered digging up roads by Cadent - bodged patching - and more patching. Strangely smooth just a mile or so up the road in London boroughs where the speed limit is only 20mph.
No issues with our lovely park, fencing, play equipment - all courtesy of Lib Dems - and green/blue flag accredited.

In a lot of cases the whole road needs doing and probably but they just seem to occasionally fill a few, the whole thing has probably got completely out of hand now.

It's fine where the new houses are being built they have lovely smooth roads and pavements even cycle paths But try pushing someone in a wheelchair around Thornton Cleveleys it's virtually impossible It's a nice area but access for wheelchairs or disabled makes it almost impossible to manage Then in other places it's just so likely older people will trip on uneven pavements and crazy bumpy roads to cross Why doesn't it matter that people are at risk of accidents through neglect or worse stuck inside because pavements unfit for wheelchairs

HaVe YoU SeEn tHe SiZe oF tHe PoThOLeS lately??

I've seen ones that are bath-sized!
I've counted 50 in about 100m length of road!
My kids and I have made a game out of it.

If there's one thing the government should be doing, it's to ensure roads are fixed.

For something to change you need a serious increase in money to local government. Little bits and pieces will get swallowed up on vital Send and social care.

The other option is national government funding ring fenced for roads, specifically potholes. Then both national and local government being castigated for spending on infrastructure when the NHS is in a state and money is being reduced to X and Y for defence increases.
Many people rightly say it is dangerous having roads in this state. I do see some waste like PP mentioned on some areas being pedestrianised but that may be because the council was told they must use it on that and can’t use it for more urgent road maintenance (see also dedicated cycle lane funding that cannot be used fixing potholes so that when cyclists are on the road they are safe)

I destroyed two tyres and two alloys on a pothole. It had to go through insurance as it is a company lease car. When I switch back to owning my own car this year, I suspect I will be paying much higher insurance premiums as a result. It will have cost a few k to fix.

I really struggle to believe that it is economically better to leave the potholes and pay for all of the car repairs needed. But of course individuals paying vs taxes paying for repairs means it comes from a different source.

The roads didn't get like this overnight. Austerity has a lot to answer for.

I hope reform finds the money to improve roads and pavements no other party has done much !

They are a problem where I live.

Once had to have my tyre replaced, and can't count how many times I've had wheel alignment done.

I drove along about 400m of newly surfaced road last night and was wondering what was wrong with my car as I didn’t recognise the noise of it…..because the road was so damn smooth! That’s how bad they are locally!!

A lot of people seem weirdly fixated by them. Anything positive done to our town generates the "why are you not spending money on fixing potholes". And this is one of the few places rated green and having some of the best repairs in the country

They will cut social care and SEND funding if they can. And spend the money on overpriced machines from their major doner JCB

Tgey are a very visible reminder that the country is falling apart and cant afford to keep itself repaired.

Maybe they should do this instead of spending on their election campaigns? Get a road resurfacing machine painted up in party colours and just start sorting it out. I reckon you'd even get publicity.

I hit one last weekend cost me 360 to fix my car so yes it’s a massive thing to get them sorted , nothing worse than driving at 60 and hitting one, also knocks all your balance out on the car, loads where I am.