A POTHOLE so bad it earned its own Twitter hashtag could finally be fixed after the leader of Oxfordshire County Council pledged to give it his special attention.

Abingdon taxi driver Colin Dobson has been tweeting updates about the #OckStreetHole ‘saga’ for weeks.

The leaking crater was patched up by Thames Water earlier this month, but Mr Dobson said the repaired surface quickly disintegrated and the hole had now been coned off.

Oxford Mail:

He said more workers appeared this week to clear a nearby drain but there had been no change to the state of one of the town’s busiest roads.

Replying to an update from the taxi driver yesterday stating that water was still leaking six weeks on, county council leader Ian Hudspeth wrote: “I will arrange a meeting with Thames Water asap to find out why they haven’t addressed this problem and get an action plan to fix it properly.”

He later added that he had spoken with Thames Water and said it would be sending engineers there either yesterday or today, as well as keeping him updated on the situation.

Mr Dodson thanked the councillor and in a further tweet said: “They’ve left this hole in the middle of a live lane of traffic, leaking water and then tar oil.”

He added the Thames Water repair had been ‘shockingly incompetent’.

The water company’s own social media team also responded, saying the matter had been ‘escalated with our reinstatement team’ but Mr Dobson said he had little faith in the process as they were the seventh person he had dealt with from Thames Water.