Mill Road trader plants trees in Cambridge potholes to highlight danger

A frustrated Cambridge resident has been placing miniature Christmas trees in deep potholes that have appeared around local streets in a bid to warn road users to avoid them.

Hairdresser Piero D’Angelico, who lives near Mill Road, hit on the idea after spotting trees left out for recycling and realising he could put them to use.

Earlier this month, Cambridgeshire County Council admitted that there were more than 5,000 potholes in the county that required fixing but has said it has put on extra resources to solve the problem.

Piero said: “I put out four small Christmas trees to show people where the worst potholes are around this neighbourhood because they are a real danger to cyclists and can damage your car.

“People driving past were smiling and laughing when they saw them but I wanted to highlight the fact that there are so many potholes in the streets locally. There are more than 100 approaching the roundabout at Cromwell Road and you can see that the road is like patchwork because there have been so many cheap fixes of potholes in the past that just break open again in the bad weather. The road needs to be properly resurfaced but it never gets done. Maybe I should plant some flowers in the bigger ones so that they are easy to spot.

“In the past I have damaged the rim of my wheel driving over a pothole there and the county council had to pay the bill to fix it. This must happen a lot so they would surely make some savings if they just resurfaced the road to prevent more potholes.”

The county council confirmed it had repaired 700 road ‘defects’ in three days.

Cllr Alex Beckett and Cllr Neil Shailer, chair and vice-chair of the council's highways and transport committee, said: “In the winter a lot more road defects and potholes form, this is being seen across the country. This is due to wet and freezing weather causing those worn areas of road and pavement surfaces to break up.

“We know how important our roads are which is why we carry out regular inspections of our roads, bridges, cycleways and footpaths. Defects identified and reported to us are repaired as quickly as possible.

“We have increased the number of gangs dealing with both temporary and permanent fixes and we are using our two dragon patchers.”

The average cost of fixing a pothole is £42.

The county council said: “If a pothole is large and deep, we will fix it within five days. If it is smaller and less of a hazard, we will fix it within 21 days. We mark up the potholes in different ways, those repaired in five days are not marked as our repair is immediate, yellow means we will repair it in 21 days. We always aim to fix potholes within five and 21 days.”

And the council said that while it aimed to make permanent fixes, “we sometimes have to make temporary fixes to keep people safe, to keep up with the numbers and because road conditions are too wet for permanent repairs”, adding: “Permanent fixes will then be programmed in and delivered when the weather allows.”

Potholes can be reported at cambridgeshire.gov.uk/highwayfaults.