Potholes

This is NOT a picture of a pothole
near my home but if left some may
soon look like this!

The following is a copy of my letter sent to the Local Council on 8th May 2012.

Dear Sirs,
Contractors recently filled a small number of potholes in the road adjacent to my home and left the remainder? Common sense tells us with everyday wear and tear small potholes soon become large. It is therefore more economical to fill small potholes before they become big ones. That’s logical but after many years experience, professionally and domestically, of local authorities I realise logic is the enemy of bureaucracy.

Allegedly, within a council and political environment it is essential to be seen to be doing when in fact very little can be achieved. This is due to the excessive overload of form filling and having to attend pointless courses and meetings. It’s not your fault and I sympathise and apologise for burdening your heavy workload. Even so I would be most grateful if you could advise regarding the following:

1. I assume current works on potholes may be temporary until the road can be resurfaced? I realise before remedial works can proceed the project would be subject to budget restraints, a myriad of meetings and seemingly endless policy reviews before any tenders could go out.  If the road is to be resurfaced, when is completion of works scheduled for; will it be within the next five years, next decade, next century or perhaps millennium?

2. Assuming the road isn’t going to be resurfaced, I wonder if a pothole action team has been assigned the task of looking into potholes? After countless meetings, a risk assessment and health and safety review, designation of what constitutes a pothole would probably be of utmost importance. If a pothole below a specific size is renamed, then it wouldn’t be a pothole. It therefore wouldn’t be filled! If my assumption is correct, to temporarily solve the problem may I suggest filling the remaining potholes, or whatever the revised name is, with the reams and reams of paper from report(s) that may have been made? Admittedly my idea is not practical, but neither are the costly wasted hours, allegedly, compiling reports!

3. When potholes become large enough to attract aquatic life, will residents require a fishing permit?

4. Roads sometimes reflect a feature such as: “Mill Road” may have had a mill in it and “College Road” may have had a college in it. In view of the potholes, is there any truth in the rumour the road near my house could be renamed “The Hump-N-Bump-N-Shock-Absorber-Thump-An?”

5. As only a selected few potholes have been filled are the remaining potholes part of a new organic traffic calming measure?

6. Is it worth considering potholes as an integral part of the Olympics, such as pothole pole-vaulting?

Bureaucracy only works in an emergency so I fully realise nothing will happen until the road resembles a lunar landscape. To encapsulate this letter, it would have been cost effective and logical to fill all holes when the contractor was on site. I am therefore completely puzzled why only a selected few potholes have been filled and simply ask the question, why?

Yours faithfully without ill-will or vexation