Pothole perils

Councillor Andrew Wood has hit out over the state of the roads and says that it has taken over a year for requested resurfacing works to be carried out.
Taking the above pictures of large potholes in his Mid and Upper Nithsdale ward, Councillor Wood said: “These are samples of road damage that need urgent repairs and have been reported over a year ago with no action.
“We now have a situation where all roads within Mid and Upper Nithsdale are breaking up.
“We had four vehicles recently coming down the Dalveen Pass, all parked up with burst tyres and rims dues to hitting the same pothole at different times.
“They collectively phoned the police, who came out and reported the pothole to Dumfries and Galloway Council, demanding that it got repaired as soon as possible.”
He added: “The public and community councils regularly report on the council’s pothole recording system, but with no repairs taking place, rendering the council system a total waste of time, money and accountability.
“I have also seen local people fill some of these potholes with sub-base or concrete, as it is becoming almost impossible to carry out daily chores in rural locations.”
Mandy Bindley is a member of the newly-formed Wanlockhead Community Council, and she has taken responsibility for reporting the large number of potholes in the area.
She said: “In the village there are a lot of potholes and I’ve been in touch with the council reporting them over the past couple of months.
“With the weather being quite severe at times over winter, with a lot of ice and snow, patch-up road repairs aren’t doing the job.
“We’ve not had any full roads resurfacing for quite a while.”
A council spokesperson said: “Our council is in the process of undertaking first-time permanent repairs in Mid and Upper Nithsdale, with focus on the main towns, through the roads recovery fund.
“Thornhill is complete and Sanquhar is being undertaken at the moment, with initial works started in Kirkconnel/Kelloholm that will recommence in the near future.
“These works are part of a three-year, £2.4 investment, to address the backlog of pothole and drainage defects across Dumfries and Galloway.
“Our council has supported this process by investing an additional £960,000 for financial year 2022/23.
“During the winter defects can appear very quickly, with some within a matter of hours, but we need to continue to prioritise all reactive and planned repairs on all of our road network.
“All defects reported by the public are inspected and an appropriate repair will be considered.
“The council prepares an annual programme of resurfacing sites to the value of circa £7.4m which is to deal with the most significant locations with substantial defects.”