Our say

Summer Round Up

3rd August 2009

After a hectic start to the year with the cold weather creating lots of potholes, the warm summer seems to be allowing councils the chance to cope with the backlog. There are still far too many out there though, and there has been plenty of coverage to highlight this.

Top of the pile was a great piece on Fifth Gear – the guys there picked up the very real issue of pothole damage and helped pass on our advice to all their viewers. Many thanks to them for highlighting the issue and you can see the piece here: http://bit.ly/10z6N0. They gave Potholes.co.uk a good mention and that’s driven lots of new people to visit the site since. Don’t forget if you’ve suffered from pothole damage then there is a step by step guide on Potholes.co.uk as to how get compensated – check out the “How to Claim” section.

Elsewhere in the news, according to the Daily Star, even superstars are affected by potholes - England midfielder Steven Gerrard has also been having a few pothole issues himself. The neighbours on his road are up in arms about him not helping with further repairs to the damage on “millionaires row”.

Basically he and a few residents wanted the potholes on the road filling in but only paid for their side of the road to be done. Now their side of the road is nice and smooth, pothole free but the other side is still littered with potholes and is a nightmare and danger to drive down. http://bit.ly/mrQRc

Speaking of The Daily Star, they’ve become the latest newspaper to start a campaign to improve Britain’s roads. http://bit.ly/avO8q

But there may be some solution to our pothole problems after all, with a trial taking place in Lincolnshire to fill potholes using leftovers from the local chippy. Chip fat will be now be used instead of tarry bitumen to bind together asphalt and fix holes.

Helen Bailey of Leicester-based Aggregate Industries, said: "Bitumen is expensive and uses up valuable crude oil supplies.” If that’s an excuse for more of us to eat chips, then we’re all for it. http://bit.ly/Qtqiv

Seriously though, anything that helps reduce the cost of pothole repair can only be a good thing so maybe if this trial proves to be successful councils will have no option but fix the ever-increasing number of potholes in our roads.

But until then, keep reporting potholes to councils and using our “how to claim” section to try and get the compensation you deserve.