What unites cyclists, pedestrians and people who drive cars, buses and HGVs? Oxfordshire roads have turned all these groups into one large fellowship of fury. How? The answer is simple – potholes.

The main road into Oxford, the London Road in Headington, has been described by local county councillor Roz Smith as “embarrassing, disgraceful and inexcusable. When coaches reach the Green Road roundabout the drivers should make an announcement like airline pilots do when they fly through a storm and tell passengers to be prepared for 10 minutes of disturbance and turbulence“.

This section of Headington is pitted with potholes and resembles a war zone where innocent civilian pedestrians can suffer collateral damage, Roz tells me. If people are waiting at a bus stop near Wharton Road and a coach hits a hole full of water, they won’t just get drenched, but also showered with gravel. These potholes are so deep and serious, the water and the drivers are dislodging stones underneath which can come shooting out.

When Roz was riding her bicycle from Gladstone Road to Barton Road she had to cross the London Road. There is a long ridge right there where the surface has gone completely, she says, and a wheel can get stuck in the rut and tip the bicycle over. When Roz fell she says she was lucky that no bus or van was thundering down on top of her, but she won’t be taking that junction again until the road is fit for purpose.

In Wheatley the potholes on the London Road from the Triangle Care Home towards ASDA include some that resemble a baby bath, says local county councillor Anne Purse.

Oxford Mail:

  • Erin and Darcey Kelly with one of the potholes on Whitehouse Road

She took an officer of the council to see the damage for himself. “The officer said it’s not bad enough for any action at the moment. I’d like to know exactly what their criteria are for action.

“Where there are clusters of holes it’s harder to report them because it’s difficult to identify each hole precisely. You are really not so much reporting a pothole, more pointing at the state of the whole road. But people need to report this because the more potholes are reported, the bigger the embarrassment becomes.”

All county councillors have at their discretion a fund called “locality money”. This amounts to £16,000 which can be spent on a problem that is not a countywide issue, but for the people who have to put up with the problem locally it is a very big one.

This fund has been in operation for the last two years and will be abolished next year. Anne told me all the money has to be allocated by next Friday. “I wanted to use it to fill in some of the potholes on the London Road, but discovered the rules governing the fund had changed and I was not allowed to spend it on the repair of this road.

“Filling in the potholes would be a start, but it would not be a finish. That road needs resurfacing.”

Roz takes a different view for the London Road in Headington. She says resurfacing is not enough because the county council did that about five years ago when they painted the red and yellow and green bits establishing the bus lanes. Now the road needs complete rebuilding.

Simon Hunt is the new chairman of the cycling campaign group in Oxford – Cyclox. He argues that the question is wider still. The Abingdon Road was rebuilt a few years ago the full length of this artery road, done to a high standard which made a big difference.

But now the drains and manhole covers that interrupt the tarmac are already sinking and about 20 per cent of them have become hazardous to cyclists, according to Simon. What has been done to the manholes and drains to make them liable to sink? It’s a fundamental engineering problem that takes in general maintenance and includes a control on overhanging vegetation.

Simon focused on the hazards of cycling in Oxford. “If your wheel goes into a rut you will fall over. But to avoid these pitfalls you have to concentrate on them and this distracts you from your main job of traffic monitoring to make sure you can negotiate the hazards posed by other road users.

“When you go north on the Banbury Road, there are so many potholes at the bus stop by St Giles Church you have to go a half metre out into the road. It’s impossible to cycle near the footpath and cars are accelerating as they come up to the 30 mile per hour speed zone. I’ve felt threatened there.”

This isn’t just an Oxford problem. The B4526 in Goring Heath has damaged vehicles. That road has caused the county council to pay out more claims for compensation than any other road. Over £6,000 was paid to motorists in the three months from December 2012 to February 2013. One of those claims amounted to an unbelievable £3,905.46.

Does Oxfordshire County Council have a viable roads maintenance policy?