Potholes

Pinfold Road, Bourne

Many of the roads around Bourne have been deteriorating in recent years through poor maintenance despite the assurances of Lincolnshire County Council, the highways authority, that procedures are in place to fill in potholes as and when they occur.

These hazards are caused by wear and weathering, creating a real danger to passing vehicles, despite new initiatives being launched with promises of a lorry loaded with tarmac and a couple of workmen on call ready to speed to the outposts of the county whenever they are reported yet a short drive around the streets will always reveal many such hazards that have been awaiting attention for quite some time.

A pothole code is even itemised on the county council’s web site reminding us that the authority has a statutory duty to maintain adopted roads and paths and this includes making safe such potentially dangerous defects yet despite the admitted existence of these Pothole Patrol Gangs who, it is claimed, will temporarily repair the defect normally within 24 hours, few people have ever seen them in action.

The size of the task for the county council should not be under-estimated because it looks after some 5,600 miles of roads as well as footpaths and cycleways and has the responsibility of keeping all road users safe and to reduce accidents. But there do seem to be rather at lot of potholes at any given time.

The photographs above are just a few which were taken on a ten minute drive around the town in May 2009 without even trying to seek them out, taking in Meadowgate, Manning Road, Queen’s Road, Mill Drove and Stephenson Way, as well as Ancaster Road and South Fen Road which had both been notoriously bad for several months and some had been there so long that they were sprouting weeds.

Few roads around the county, however, can be in a worse state than that which leads off Manning Road to the waste recycling centre in Pinfold Road which is a moonscape of potholes, some of them six to eight inches deep and extremely dangerous for the vehicles using this thoroughfare to dump their rubbish. The problem has been apparent ever since the centre opened in May 2002 yet apart from some superficial repairs nothing has been done to bring the surface up to an acceptable driving standard.

One of our local councillors, Helen Powell (Bourne West) raised the issue during a meeting of the town council’s highways and planning committee in April 2010 when it was revealed that the road has never been adopted and is therefore outside the county council’s control. After some discussion, it was decided to trace the owner of the road through the Land Registry in order that it may be brought under county council control.

Meanwhile, more dangers were reported in August 2011 along another busy section of road that was beginning to disintegrate, the narrow lane which leads off South Street to the public library, the fire station and the Red Hall, but despite the amount of traffic, including emergency vehicles, nothing has been done to repair several huge pot holes, one of them which looked like a small crater which was growing larger by the week and likely to cause very serious damage to any passing vehicle unable to avoid it.

Despite promises by the county council to repair serious pot holes as they occurred, those outside the public library were still in evidence in October 2011 by which time several had become much deeper and filled with water and were now extremely dangerous for passing motorists.

REVISED OCTOBER 2011