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The road between our villages has got bad over the last winter and was due to be worked on before Christmas. Locals in South Moreton wanted to keep their old school kerbstones so the job was put on the back burner for a few weeks, the potholes started to get bigger, just round a blind 90° bend the holes got so bad that half the narrow road was coned off and then lockdown hit.
The road now has deep sharp edged pot holes round the corner, so deep that motorists happily drive on the other side of the road approaching the blind corner and I you got a wheel into some of those holes your roadbike ain't coming out without without a ladder.
Who do I send pics to? It is pretty lethal.
TIA.
https://www.oxfordshire.gov.uk/residents/roads-and-transport/street-maintenance-z/potholes#no-back
I'd have thought a newshound would be better at Googling.
You should put a picture of yourself, pointing sadly into the pothole, on the front page.
Or Fill That Hole, from Cycling UK. https://www.fillthathole.org.uk/
They should pass on any reports to the relevant highway authority.
I’d have thought a newshound would be better at Googling.
The thing about asking here is you never know where the thread will take you. I'm waiting to be told I should jump the holes or change my tyres to something more suitable. And I'm not standing there for a second with the speed the four wheeled community make progress at round that corner.
The potholes are definitely caused by dog owners.
+1 for the CUK 'fillthathole' link above. Its worked twice for me here in Shropshire in the last 12 months, including a temp patch on a hole which has subsequently been part of a 400m length of surface which was ripped right out and relaid, during lockdown. Clearly that was on the works programme anyway, but the point is the holes were patched in the interim.
The main road through Delamere Forest has been marked up for patching and is numbered from 1-56 over a 2 mile stretch. I rode it last week and they have missed about another 50 areas. How can the council justify patching when its crying out to be resurfaced?
You should go on a bike skills course so you get the skills to jump over them. Failing that you need a bigger more suitable tyre.
You should put a picture of yourself, pointing sadly into the pothole, on the front page.
Scratch that.
A picture of you in full lycra, in the hole, at the foot of a ladder, pointing sadly at the buckled road bike wheel you're holding in your, fingerless mitted, hand.
That'd be better.
Convert to a cock and balls with some spray paint.
I've just reported a lethal one near me but as the council only have a 12% success rate I'm not holding my breath.
It took them 2 years to clean out a drain that was causing flooding on a main road - people reported it & all they'd do would send out a worker to put 'flood' roadsigns out.
Using the councils own reporting website is deliberately tedious & 9 times out of 10 they dismiss some fairly big defects with 'does not meet our hazard criteria'
Is there an ombudsman or course for complaint that actually has some teeth that will get things done?
You should go on a bike skills course so you get the skills to jump over them. Failing that you need a bigger more suitable tyre.
SEE!!!! You don't get that personalised service from Google 🙂
A picture of you in full lycra, in the hole, at the foot of a ladder, pointing sadly at the buckled road bike wheel you’re holding in your fingerless mitted hand.
Hmmm. Sounds more like a caption competition...
You should put a picture of yourself, pointing sadly into the pothole, on the front page.
Better idea, I've mailed the Editor to run something on what Basingstoke and the surrounding villages are thinking about doing to keep folk cycling after all this is over and how much of that £250M they are asking for.
Also asking readers what it would take to keep them cycling post lockdown.
****sy is your man..
fixmystreet.com is my go to rant at the council about potholes. It seems to work. The council usually responds within the week and fixes the potholes within a fortnight!
Not all councils accept pothole reports from 3rd party reporting sites.
FIFE don't accept reports from fix my street.com for example🤬🤬🤬
A picture
You should picture the pothole with a measure of its depth e.g. a proper tape measure is best - and even the diameter. These dictate intervention levels, and with social distance have the better option of not having an Inspector go out (which is of increased risk and many contracted staff are furlough so there is a resource shortage).
All of these good measures to get it sorted. However, many councils are distracted toward community safety / PPE supplied etc for COVID-19 do potholes are lower down he agenda. I know of one county that is reporting a 10 week delay in all activity.
HTH
And yet I remember my mum, whenever there were roadworks on the drive down to devon in the summer, which means on EVERY drive down to devon, telling us to open the windows and breathe deep as the smell of tar was good for our lungs....
Not all councils accept pothole reports from 3rd party reporting sites.
FIFE don’t accept reports from fix my street.com for example🤬🤬🤬
Yes ours (Devon) is one of the 4% who do this - crazy, if you want the public to report problems, then surely the more ways they can do it the better?
The cynic in me thinks that they don't want reports as that means they have to actually do something.
Dear Gods Of Singletrack. Thank you. I dont know how you did it but I went to Waitrose on the bike, approached the Corner of Holes and found a full team fixing the potholes.
That is just over an hour from my post on here. Thank you thank you thank you.
I didn't get in touch with anybody so I assume they read this or probably Hannah threatened to kick butt.
Of course I'm only assuming they're fixing them. For all I know they are topping up the big one with water and adding a waterslide for the village kids...
That was Search and Rescue trying to manhandle a roadie up a ladder
Eddiebaby and Traiseekers Highways authorities use the same software system so its interesting that you have different experience.
But thanks for the Lead 😉
Even when they do repair roads the standard of work is crap, a section near work is worse than before the repair after less than 18 months.
Very true! The waterboard can lay a pipe across the road and resurface the trench, and it's still there 3 years later. The blokes whose job is actually to repair the roads can't make it last 3 months...
I used fixmystreet to report a slot shaped potential wheel swallower right in the 'secondary position' on a downhill stretch a couple of weeks ago. I filled the form in as "on road A south of junction with road B, along previous repair by drain grill" and to be fair the local council marked the road up within a couple of days and patched up a sizeable section of road within a week.
The thing is they'd obviously just gone to the first drain south of the junction with road B, seen the surface was a bit iffy (just your standard crappy surface, nothing that'd dismount anyone) and marked that up for resurfacing and not bothered to look further down and see the reported hole that could potentially have someone off. Also the email that I got stating "works completed" is from an unmonitored mailbox. You try and help them but.... 🙄
https://www.fixmystreet.com/ has been quite successful for me, my local council seem to respond quite quickly to reports on it.
Somerset County Council have an online reporting tool where you can mark the pothole (or other hazard) on a map.
I've used it a fair few times for potholes & overgrown cycle paths. I've found that it you mention something along the lines of 'potentially fatal to a cyclist or motorcyclist' or suggest serious injury, it usually gets addressed in a few days (the quality of the repair however isn't always great).