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Posted by: diamond41970 Mar 26 2010, 10:50 PM

I am sure others have already had a rant about these but we are now in March and there are still loads of holes in our roads. One of the worst areas I have to pass twice a day is Enborne Road I feel like I am just closing my eyes and going for it because they are everywhere and my poor little Fiesta is about to shake off all of her outer body and goodness knows what it is doing to her insides.....

Posted by: user23 Mar 26 2010, 11:14 PM

Have you reported them?

Posted by: diamond41970 Mar 26 2010, 11:26 PM

Yes sure have and they now have yellow markings round them - but have had yellow markings round them for two weeks now

Posted by: gel Mar 28 2010, 08:56 PM

Strategy is to leave them long enough for paint to be worn away, then repair gang
can drive by them, as they won't use common sense and only fill marked holes.

Posted by: GMR Mar 28 2010, 09:16 PM

Round where I live they are very bad. And getting worse.

Posted by: andrewmo Mar 31 2010, 09:51 AM

I sent a letter and an email to the council about the potholes around where I live as well as the state of The Broadway in Thatcham. Guess what....they didn't reply.

So I phoned the council, got through eventually to somebody who said they would take a message and get back to me....guess what....they didn't.

I had the same issue with them last year where I complained about the state of Heath Lane. Eventually they patched the holes (badly) and now they are worse than ever.

Councils - full of incompetents.

Posted by: Bloggo Mar 31 2010, 10:03 AM

Email the WBC Cheif Exec. and write to your MP.

Posted by: Ozzy Apr 1 2010, 03:13 PM

The Broadway is dreadful. It's a crumbling wreck.

I was lucky as my main complaint was on the commuter route I do. I contacted the Highways Agency about the M4 at Junction 5 and they 'eventually' got back to me. They have redone over the road temporarily but at least the potholes have gone. I felt chuffed when they filled the road based on my complaint but as i said i was lucky that it's not a local council.

The biggest thing i stressed in my letter to them was the dangers. Cars swerving to avoid them made it very dangerous. I can only imagine that cars swerving in The Broadway would be even more dangerous given the pedestrians.

Isn't there a legal requirement that they have to get back to you by a certain point, usually a charter of some sort.

And i'm sure they have to do something about the pothole. They can't just ignore you.

No doubt it will take someone to be seriously injured before they take notice.

I'm glad our council tax rise means we get a better service

Posted by: GMR Apr 1 2010, 06:33 PM

My son talk me for a drive to Thatcham (from Newbury) and the pot holes on the main A4 are terrible.

Posted by: lordtup Apr 1 2010, 08:14 PM

No idea of the cost of the required work , but I do know that it will be prohibitive .This in turn will result in howls of protest from the non motoring element of the council tax payer , and quite rightly so .
I have every sympathy with the Ford Fiesta type owner whose vehicle will suffer more than the 4x4s and heavy goods who are chewing up the roads even more in the interim , but money is tight , or it should be in the present economic climate , so we must have a little patience.
Anyway if we have another bad winter next year it will be academic as the pot holes will reappear and the same old arguments will surface .
Let's face it we are fiscally b...........d so buy a bike and and ride round them

Posted by: Iommi Apr 1 2010, 08:59 PM

From memory, the West Berkshire area has for a long time been known as having poor condition roads compared to other areas. This despite being an affluent area.

Posted by: Hugh Saskin Apr 2 2010, 07:49 AM

West Berkshire doesn't even get a mention in this (because of it's small size, perhaps?) but there can't be that many socially deprived areas in Surrey:

http://www.motors.co.uk/cars/car-news/surrey-is-britains-worst-county-for-potholes

Posted by: Iommi Apr 2 2010, 09:41 AM

I was talking historically. To be fair to the Conned-servatives, they did invest in a good road repair program in recent past, but I'm talking historically, going back many decades.

Posted by: user23 Apr 2 2010, 10:10 AM

Couldn't agree more. Whoever is in power after May 6th will have to make even larger cutbacks in local government spending than has happened up until now.

Tough choices like whether to fix a hole in the road or care for an elderly person will have to be made and in most cases they'll always choose the latter for obvious reasons.

People want to pay less and less for their Council Tax which is fair enough but with an ageing population and unforeseen events like the two snowy winters the cost of providing services have risen, something has to give.

Posted by: Iommi Apr 2 2010, 10:41 AM

...or whether to use space in the Kennet Centre for free, or heat and maintain a derelict building for our CEOs...


My understanding is that councils are given money by the government, specificity for the use of maintaining roads, so I'm not sure elderly are directly affected by the cost of road maintenance. Come to think of it, the elderly and their carers have to use pot holed roads as well!

Posted by: diamond41970 Apr 4 2010, 10:15 PM

I would like to respond to this obviously being the one who posted the "random rant". Do I pay car tax? Yes of course I do. Do I pay Council Tax - yes of course I do. Should I buy a bike and ride round pot holes? - you have to be joking. I live 7 miles from the nearest village and 15 miles from where I work. Did I choose to live that far away? - Yes of course I did but I don't see why I should not expect our roads to be safe to drive on. A very large hole filed in only 1 week ago is now a very large hole again !!! Money is being wasted by the repairs not being carried out properly in the first place. My rod end "I think that is the name of it" has now snapped costing me £250 repairs. Should I raise a damage claim with Council? I think I should but think that if we all did that then there would be no money left for anything else.....

Posted by: Biker1 Apr 5 2010, 02:22 PM

Yes that's the track rod end.
Must have been one h ell of a pothole to snap that!
It means you have no steering!

Make sure the tracking is checked after the new one is fitted.

Posted by: GMR Apr 5 2010, 10:22 PM

The more I cylce around Newbury the more I see how bad we are with all those pot holes around.

Posted by: Bill1 Apr 6 2010, 04:45 PM

I reported some to WBCs streetcare today and they are already in the process of repairing them.

Posted by: Blake Apr 7 2010, 12:13 PM

Try this site to get things fixed;

www.fixmystreet.com

Posted by: Strafin Apr 9 2010, 03:20 AM

I wouldn't mind the pot holes so much if the tories hadn't made such a big manifesto promise of making them all so much better. I'm currently in the states and have to say the pot hole count here so far this visit sits at Zero.