Many thanks for all of the feedback on our local pothole campaign. At long last, the county council has taken some action and implemented a new online reporting service and increased the number of repair gangs from 10 to 19. The details are here.
However, most of us know from driving around Wantage and Grove that the problem does not seem to be with reporting potholes, as many of them have already been marked with red and white paint for a long time. In some cases, they have been reported so long ago that the paint is wearing off!
A good example can be seen in the photos above, which show a pothole immediately outside King Alfred's College in Portway. Clearly, it is a priority case as it is both deep and in a dangerous place just outside a busy school site. The left photo shows that it was already marked with red paint on 13 March. I re-reported this pothole the same day and it was not repaired until 21 March (right photo) some 8 days later! Indeed, I received an email to say that the safety inspectors had marked it as a category 1A (the most serious) on 18th March. So, if this is the timespan from reporting to repair for such a dangerous pothole in a key area outside our secondary school, then I do not hold out much hope for those on our surrounding estate roads!
As many of you have commented, the situation with the Camel roundabout (at the junction of Mill Street, Denchworth Road and Ham Road) is simply appalling. The photo above was taken on 24 February and the road has deteriorated further with whole sections of surface missing and metal drains sticking up. I am told that this has been inspected and a whole section of the road will need "planing". Again, I reported this several weeks ago and we still await action. Oddly, contractors went out and re-painted white lines in this area and highways officers are still investigating why this had happened before any repair work had been carried out! Meanwhile, residents are having to risk their cars here and providing a "bumpy" road sign is simply not good enough as it has completely failed in my opinion.
According to the County Council's website "Once a reported pothole has been verified by a member of the Highways team, the county council’s contractor undertakes to repair these potholes within 28 days, 24 hours for emergency potholes, and two hours for the most severe category."
Our pothole petition is still open, so please sign up at:
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