Action needed on potholes

COULD the Observer, perhaps with our local parish councils, mount a campaign to get local residents to report, and if possible photograph, all the major local potholes they can find? It would be to the advantage of all of us who have to do a sort of slalom around the many potholes on our local roads.

The other day I spent a freezing 15 minutes putting on a spare wheel after suffering an expensive, tyre-wrecking blowout in a pothole just past the Hare and Hounds near Peasmarsh. Our garage said many local people have suffered damaged tyres and wheels recently. What can be done to make things better? Well, all of us can help!

Pothole repairs are the responsibility of the East Sussex County Council. If you hit a pothole that has been ‘reported’ to the council and suffer damage to your car, you can claim. But if you hit an ‘unreported’ pothole the county council has no responsibility to indemnify your loss, provided they have a reasonable inspection schedule. During this appalling weather the council relies largely upon us to report potholes, preferably before they become so large and deep as to cause vehicular damage. The more reports there are of a particularly bad pothole, the faster action is likely to follow. Council targets for action, I gather, vary between ‘making safe within two hours’ for bad holes on busy A roads, to “when a team is in the area” for more minor potholes on less used roads.

Dangerous potholes can be reported on 0345 60 80 193 for immediate action, but generally it is best to report on http://www.eastsussex.gov.uk/contactus/reportaproblem/problems.aspx. I found entering “report a problem East Sussex“ on Google got me to the right place. Using Google maps I pinpointed the place, entered a photo and got a number to check progress. Now I await action!

Christopher Jackson

Flackley Ash Farmhouse

Peasmarsh