Name: Potholes.
Age: Generally a few months to a few years old, and getting older.
Appearance: A roughly circular absence of road, in the middle of the road.
I’ve seen a lot of them about lately. You’re likely to see more. Funding cuts to rural councils of £480m will lead to an estimated 11m potholes going unfilled.
Is it an expensive endeavour? It only costs, on average, about £41 to fill in a single pothole, but the damage to cars can be immense. The RAC deals with about 27 pothole-related breakdowns every day.
I’d like to help, but what can one person do? You could take matters into your own hands.
Is that a thing? Increasingly it is. Elizabeth Williams, 89, got tired of the 3ft-wide potholes outside her home in Wyncote Court, Newcastle upon Tyne, so she paid to have them filled in.
How much? £4,000.
That’s a little above my budget. Eventually, she was reimbursed by the property services company responsible for the upkeep of the roads on her estate.
Any other examples of this sort of altruistic infrastructure maintenance? Yes, in March singer Rod Stewart grabbed a shovel and assembled a crew to fill in the potholes near his Essex estate.
Had the road become hazardous? Oh, yes. “My Ferrari can’t get through here at all,” said Stewart.
Freelance pothole-filling is beginning to sound like a rich person’s game. As hobbies go, it’s not cheap.
I know a joke about this: why can’t you get public money to fill in potholes you’ve allowed to build up in your private driveway? Actually, you can.
Cos it’s your own asphalt! Wait, what? You can: £333,000 of public money from the government’s Getting Building Fund was recently spent repairing potholes in the poorly maintained driveway of Tory peer Lord Gage’s East Sussex estate.
But it’s his own-ass fault! Apparently, there’s a museum somewhere on Lord Gage’s extensive grounds that will benefit from improved access.
I don’t care! He ruined my joke! I’m sorry.
When I think about poor old Sir Rod out there in his hi-vis, shovelling away. I know. It’s terrible.
Or poor Elizabeth Williams, having to pay to fix her own street. The funny thing is, she doesn’t even drive.
Do say: “By failing to maintain our vital transport infrastructure, we are storing up trouble for the future.”
Don’t say: “Britain’s Broken Roads – It’s Our Own Asphalt.”
