Potholes

In my area of Surrey, one of the local Conservative councillors is still of the opinion that potholes are a great / useful speed calming measure As a result, in advance of the local elections, a couple of people round here have put up signs supporting Labour / Lib Dem that state potholes are NOT speed calming measures

Regarding the upcoming local elections the Lib Dems round here did a pretty decent flyer recently that pretty much tore into the local Conservatives failings in our area over the last decade - especially with regards to basic road / pavement maintenance, over valued purchases of office buildings for conversion to prison cells (sorry mini apartments / flats), shop space, etc. Yet the Conservatives hit back claiming it's all lies and the figures claimed are wrong - yet it appears they've used figures that go back as far as 2019 to make it look like they've done a better job on road maintenance / potholes than they actually have, plus they've also used the figures for the entirety of Surrey CC, rather than ones in our own local area, to ensure more skewing on their, alleged, success rate at repairs

Back to the potholes round here, what's been happening recently is that clearly the CC are sending out a contractor to check the damage / reported areas and spray paint them with some luminous paint to make them more noticeable Unfortunately it seems that they've also been instructed, on some smaller potholes, cracks, etc, to open them up more / widen them so that when the tarmac crew arrive (whenever that may be in a few days, weeks, etc), they have a bigger area to patch (like a square / rectangle) rather than a smaller mini hole - which isn't great as all they're now doing is creating even bigger rutts in the road to avoid

Try reporting it to the Police - I've found it works (three times now) - Just rattle enough cages and you may get a result?

In the past I have suggested that local authorities (or groups of authorities) take road maintenance back in-house.

This was poo-pooed by a poster on the inside as crazy talk.
I don’t think it is.

Something stops this happening. Presumably one of the reasons is that more staff cost money. But so does handing over millions every year to contractors.

Jesus, that is a joke.
My area of Surrey is terrible now, between Epsom and Tadworth. I've started commuting on my large adventure bike as it rides the bumps much better than my scooter - I sometimes get fired out of the seat on that. I had Surrey CC cough up £180 for two tyres on my E-class destoyed by hitting a submerged pothole. Actual cost was £278 but they allowed for wear and took three months to pay out. Luckily the rims weren't damaged.
I like the Merc but I am seriously considering switching to an SUV, potholes being one of the main reasons.

Spotted this in the Surrey lanes

That's ridiculous!

Is it worth sending that with a letter to your local councillor?

Quality job Amusingly i drove past something similar to that today near Camberley (Surrey). From what i could tell as i crawled by, they'd obviously started doing similar to the above (chucking the tarmac around the area of the drain that was previously sunk / cracked), but then decided, "nah, that's not enough" and just completely covered the entire metal drain cover

Passing by the same area (but going in the other direction) later in the day, after we'd had a couple of hours of consistent rain, the unsurprising and obvious side effect of that repair was the nice big puddle of standing water due to the drain now being covered with tarmac

It also turns out that in Surrey Heath, Conservative councillors just the other week voted through a 50% reduction in the roads / repair budget for the next 2 years in order to "redirect" the other 50% into "other under-budgeted and stretched services" - but havent actually said what those services are

Is that just a fancy way of saying "our pensions"?

Ah Brent Council. I guess they may be fixed sometime before Prince George is being coronated