Man left stunned by council after filling in 20cm pothole himself
A man who was left shocked after waiting weeks for a 'dangerous' pothole to be filled decided to take matters into his own hands, and it didn't go down too well.
Potholes are quite simply a pain in the a*se on Britain's roads, with many councils in a constant battle with them.
But one bloke from Exeter was so fuming over a 'dangerous' pothole that he decided to take matters into his own hands.
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Paul Jackson says he waited weeks after contacting the council to raise concerns about a pothole outside his home. Eventually, he lost patience and decided to repair the hole himself, worried it could pose a risk to a cyclist, or damage a car going past.
He told DevonLive: "It shouldn’t be down to us to fill in our own potholes. At what point does it become a safety concern for cyclists, motorbikes and damage to vehicles? The council/ highways are a joke.
"The pothole had damaged someone’s car and had been reported by many people to the council. It was just a really bad pothole and was like it for weeks.
"I’d had enough of driving into it and I’d read people claiming on damages to their cars on the Whipton Community Group Facebook page so thought I’d sort it out before a cyclist or motorbike went through it. I used a couple of bags of cement to fill it over."
That would have been all well and good, only for a surprise development.
Just one hour after Paul had filled in the hole himself, council workers descended on the road and removed the repair work he had done before filling it in themselves.
Paul said: "I believe someone may have contacted highways to report someone filling it in as they came about an hour after to fill the hole. Two trucks and about half a dozen workers came to cut it out and fill it back in. Was it a strange coincidence? They filled the other holes in the same area on different days bizarrely."
A spokesperson for Devon County Council said: "We cannot condone work being carried out on public roads without consent and anyone doing so is putting themselves and other road users at risk. This pothole was reported to our highways teams on Tuesday, May 2, and they repaired it on Wednesday, May 17, digging out the concrete before carrying out the repair.
"We have additional crews carrying out pothole repairs across the county and they have filled more than 23,000 safety defects so far this year."
Kit Roberts