Pothole Hell!

The roads around the Grove and Wantage area, and indeed many areas of Oxfordshire, are in a shocking state. It is understandable that after all the rain and snow, the roads start to suffer, but there appear to be huge delays in dealing with defects. The red and white paint markings used to highlight reported potholes is often wearing away with no evidence of any repair. On top of this, it appears that even when repairs are made they are often of poor quality meaning that they start to deteriorate quickly.

I immediately report any potholes that I know about and I am aware that many local residents report them directly themselves. This can be done by using the "Report a road problem" facility on the Oxfordshire County Council website, which can be found here. If you are unfortunate to damage your car through potholes, there is some information on claiming compensation on the council website here. 

Understandably, there have been many complaints in the newspapers about potholes and all of the opposition parties have raised this major issue with the ruling group on Oxfordshire County Council. It is clearly time they got their act together and it is not fair that residents are risking damage to their cars due to their ineffectiveness. The leader of the council, Ian Hudspeth, has claimed on the radio that the council will deal with any failings if they are told about them by the public and will chase companies for shoddy repairs. This is simply not good enough - the council should be checking on the work themselves and monitoring the situation. It is not acceptable that residents take the trouble to report potholes only to see them remain unrepaired for long periods or for them to fail again after shoddy repairs.

I have decided that the only way of making progress is to shame the complacent ruling group on Oxfordshire County Council by maintaining a "Wantage and Grove Pothole Monitor". I have collected photos of some of the many potholes encountered when driving between Wantage and Grove and archived them here (you can also click under "Links" in the sidebar to the left of this blog). By tagging each photo with the date, we will be able to monitor the quality of any repairs.

I have reported all the defects in the archive to the Highways Department of the county council. I will add extra potholes and poor repairs as I discover them, but please feel free to advise me of any that you encounter on your journeys. We can do this together!