Residents urged to join citizen pothole army

Could you see yourself in a hi-viz jacket in the middle of the road filling in the pothole menace of the highway?

A volunteer army of hole repairers is being summoned to do just that.

Rather than just moan about the state of the roads, people are being asked to get involved in fixing them.

Volunteers will be armed with a bucket of patching tar/asphalt, a traffic bollard, a ‘men at work’ road sign, hi-vis jackets and a ‘tamper’ – tar compressor tool – to do their bit to counter the scourge of potholes.

Devon county councillor Louise Wainwright and West Devon borough councillor Holly Greenberry-Pullen have been spearheading the move to recruit volunteers.

Training is being provided for pothole repair leaders and wardens and a support team as part of a scheme which is being pioneered by the county council, which is in charge of highways.

Cllr Greenberry-Pullen, who lives in pothole-pockmarked Princetown, said: “I completely understand how strongly drivers feel about potholes.

“They affect everyone, even if you don’t drive because we all use delivery drivers and emergency services who are on the hundreds of country roads every day in Devon.

“I’ve lost six tyres through pothole damage. But now, instead of complaining, we’re asking people to take up shovels, rather than arms, and join in the parish pothole teams and see a real difference to where they live. This is a call to community action.”

The scheme, run through contracts between parish and councils, is very localised and confined to mending unclassified and B-roads and even then, it is restricted to repairs of certain so-called ‘non-defect’ potholes.

The county council is asking people to continue to report more serious ‘defect holes’, categorised by their size and shape, to Devon Highways’ online ‘report it portal’ for repair by the professionals.

The scheme has been piloted in Salcombe, the ward of Devon county councillor Louise Wainwright.

She said: “I know we are open to criticism. People ask me why they should do the work when they already pay council tax to mend the roads.

“My response is that the new volunteer trained road wardens are also taxpayers and understand the huge shortfall in central government funding for road repairs, especially in Devon with our very high numbers of B roads. Many have suffered car damage like many of us.

“The volunteers are community heroes. They’re small six-man teams, but are are holding back the deterioration of our country lanes. During the summer months they are beavering away fixing the smaller potholes that Devon Highways are unable to fix because of the lack of funding and preventing them getting bigger in the winter when it’s very hard to fix and pothole permanently. Being angry about potholes doesn’t fix them, joining the road warden scheme does, to sort out the pothole pandemic.”

Already about Devon 136 parishes, out of 426, have recruited teams. Anyone wanting to join the road warden scheme is asked to contact their parish council clerk.