Bromfield Road is one of the busiest roads in Ludlow, both with vehicle traffic and pedestrians going to and from Ludlow School. It is meant to be slow road, 20mph for the most part, but it is not a road that always feels safe. There are narrow pavements shadowed by trees that are crammed with students, especially in the afternoon at schools out. At times they spill out onto the poorly lit zebra crossing before traffic is fully at a halt. And now there is the pothole.
Pothole is a misnomer. A crater up to 15cm deep has been forming around a drain cover for a long while. It is now dangerous. It is going to blow a tyre or wreck a wheel just as vehicles approach the zebra crossing, let alone the danger to cyclists. That could lead to a serious accident. Is this the most dangerous pothole in Shropshire? Sadly, I doubt it.
The road surface around the drain has been deteriorating for a long while. There is evidence of more than one temporary patch around the cover. These patches have failed.
The state of the drain on Bromfield Road has been reported many times. It was reported again in January and in February Shropshire Council pledged to repair “shortly”. By March nothing had been done. It is now April and still nothing has been done.
Dangerous potholes like this should be fixed immediately and fixed permanently, not patched.
I am not holding out much hope of action because the Conservative leadership told councillors two weeks ago that Kier has been underperforming. Steve Davenport described the task of getting improvements in performance on highways maintenance as being akin to turning an oil tanker around.
It is time that oil tanker was going full steam ahead. We have waited months for the repair of the drain on Bromfield Road. How much longer do we have to wait? Must we wait until a car is wrecked or someone killed or seriously injured?
It’s also potentially lethal on a bike, as I have discovered. At the very least hitting it can destroy a wheel.