Name and shame the roads with the worst pot-holes in North Staffordshire and South Cheshire
Often you don't see them until it's too late. When it rains, their danger is hidden under a roof of rain water. But they are vicious, nasty and dangerous. To some they are just a hole in the road. To those who have been victims, they are man traps or simply pot-holes.
For many years as a local journalist, one of the regular stories we have written about is pot-holes in streets. In fact, I had become ambivalent to them due to the volume of them appearing in our columns.
But not now. I've noticed over the last year an increasing number of pot-holes on every kind of road, A, B or country road and even the odd belter on the M6.
In an act of New Year madness, I decided to start cycling along some lanes at the back of Sandbach and in and around Alsager.
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While riding through the beautiful winter countryside I encountered the curse of the pot-hole. But it wasn't just one pot-hole, but row after row of pot-holes, of all sizes and shapes providing a variety of dangers.
One was so deep that if by chance I had fallen face down into it, I could have drowned…fortunately I have my 25 metre swimming badge.
It made me begin to wonder what I paid my road tax for? As I have travelled through the Potteries during the last couple of weeks, my pot-hole obsession has grown to such an extent that I'm starting to wonder if
anyone or any authority will ever fill them in?
Is it the fault of Government or our local councils that ourroads are in as bad a state as I can remember?
Are the pot-holes a metaphor for the crumbling economy? Will they only ever be repaired once the recession ends and until then travellers will face having to negotiate them like a slalom course?
I've attached some pictures of my favourite pot-holes, you take your life in your hands to picture these horrors of the road. But what I would like readers to do is to send me their own pot-hole pictures.
I want to name and shame the worse streets in the Potteries and South Cheshire and then ask the relevant authorities what are they going to do to sort the problem out.
If you would like to join in, please forward your pictures to me with the name of the street, your name, address and contact details and send them to richard.bowyer@thesentinel.co.uk or upload them onto the web site.
Whatever mode of transport you use, go carefully.
Comments
by petemarino
Saturday, January 12 2013, 11:30AM
“Remember the labour anthem " There's no money left" be thankful you still have a pothole to pee in.”
by stokepotter
Saturday, January 12 2013, 8:36AM
“Bernwa, I was commenting initially on your point of blaming Maggie for the ills of the road beginning in her premiership. That was the absurd reference you made. If someone gets a cold it seems Maggie is to blame.
Now to the point of repairing the roads. As a result of relaxing regulations, many of our main roads now carry heavy goods vehicles - particularly from the continent - that the roads were never built to be able to withstand the constant punishment they undergo. The fixes that the Councils' make are just of such a substandard that they will last no time at all. With today's technology SURELY the 'experts' can come up with a better way than a couple of men shovelling a bit of tarmac into a hole then flattening it with a light roller. NO way will this repair last! How do countries with far harsher winters than us sustain their road networks?
P.S. Having visited Pompeii a few years ago, in their summerier clines I saw that even the Romans seemed to have done little to repair the deep chariot tracks in the road surfaces there. So the problem existed even before Maggie came to power over here.”
by I_Norris
Friday, January 11 2013, 6:12PM
“Did you know there a website fixmystreet . com to publicly publish such reports http://tinyurl.com/a4lfcj2 which are then forwarded to the City Council http://tinyurl.com/a4lfcj2
also have mobile phone apps to allow reporting while out and about”
by Bernwa
Friday, January 11 2013, 12:02PM
“Stokepotter - I live in cheshire east and they have to adopt a similar process for 'repairing ' pot holes so you can't blame the general problem on labour. The problem has built up over the last thirty years due to the way finances have been handled as I previously described. Labours main fault was that they did absolutely nothing to reverse the Thatcher excesses which ultimately lead to the banker's stupidity.
By the way, I voted for Thatcher first time around.”
by stokepotter
Friday, January 11 2013, 7:25AM
“stokeviabrum. Brilliant. Really made me laugh. It may be lost on some of the younger readers but it is a brilliant adaptation of a Beatle song.”
by stokeviabrum
Friday, January 11 2013, 3:34AM
“I read the news today, Oh boy! Four Thousand holes in Hanley Staffordshire! And though the holes were rather small, Rob had to count them all.. Now he knows how many holes it takes to fill the Viccy Hall!”
by bobble1956
Thursday, January 10 2013, 9:11PM
“Some time ago I contacted Adrian Knapper who was responsible for the roads raising the question of potholes being caused by road humps. The suggestion was that heavy vehicles were impacting on the road surface causing a hole to start at around the circumference of a wheel after the hump, once the initial damage is caused the surface quickly degrades and potholes happen. The question of velocity patching was also raised. This system is said to be cheaper quicker and more permanent than the present method. It was dismissed out of hand with the reason virtually being that ours are the wrong type of pot holes. So it looks like a shovel full of tarmac will be all that will happen for the foreseeable future.”
by fredthefrib
Thursday, January 10 2013, 8:33PM
“Us people are to blame we put up with anything.
The powers that be know they can sh*t all over us and we wont say a thing”
by stokepotter
Thursday, January 10 2013, 7:51PM
“Bernwa. I have heard Maggie blamed for some things but you are now blaming her for potholes in the road? She left office YEARS ago. How absurd. At least Maggie sorted out the economy.
We have had 13 years of waste by a Labour government nationally since then for which we are all paying as the coffers are now bare.
Locally, our Labour Council which has been in office forever prefers to put us in hock for years to come by borrowing and waste money on unwanted white elephants like a new Civic Centre rather than spend on the things that really matter to our city population. I saw Council employees filling in holes in Blurton earlier this week. A couple of men shovelled tarmac into the potholes holes from the back of a wagon and then a quick flattening of the resultant patch. It was a laughable result and will last no time at all.”
by amartinone
Thursday, January 10 2013, 7:11PM
“Hartshill Road is really bad, considering it's the main road between Newcastle and Stoke and is used by buses and ambulances.”