In a press release, today, Shropshire Council has announced a competition for the most potholed and most wrecked road in Shropshire. The council is claiming the competition will be a world first, allowing communities to celebrate the decaying infrastructure they must put up with day after day. The council believes that other councils will follow its lead.
Launching the competition, the council leader promised world class prizes:
“The prize of winning the competition will be an immediate repair of the road. We will have crews standing by for an overnight repair, weather permitting.
“Winning will be give instant fame for the parish and residents and their road. It will be a return to the days when the Daily Mail featured “Vince Hunt Road”, one of the council’s most successful media operations.
“My Cabinet and I discussed what prize to offer the successful parish. Although the winning entry will be destroyed overnight, Cabinet members were of the view that the road could become more famous than Banksy’s shredded painting. Prize winning potholes that disappear overnight! My Cabinet and I are convinced it will become a national sensation.”
The portfolio holder for finance added:
“Councillors felt we should add to prize. A recent initiative by the portfolio holder for transport to allow payment for car parking with egg mayonnaise sandwiches sadly came to nothing.
“The council’s consultants, Pricey We’re Costly, looked in detail at the proposal but after weeks of analysis and eating egg mayonnaise sandwiches, they concluded it was not practical as parking meters would need a substantial upgrade to take egg mayonnaise as a currency. The council’s environmental health experts also raised a stink about the proposal.
“Despite this setback, we have decided that egg mayonnaise sandwiches would be an eggs-cellent bonus prize.
“With the huge number of poultry units in the county, and plans for more being hatched, we have no shortage of eggs. We will offer an egg mayonnaise sandwich to every resident of the successful parish.”
Concluding the council’s comments, the leader added:
“I recognise that some parishes might want to keep their potholes once they become nationally famous. We are a charitable council and if a parish wants to donate its repairs to another, we would be happy with that.”
On receiving news of the competition, Heather Kidd Shropshire Councillor for Chirbury and Worthen said:
“My division has suffered broken, wrecked, collapsed and potholed roads for years. We’ll certainly enter the competition, probably with a road in Priest Weston, but we are spoilt for choice.
“If we win, we will want an immediate repair of this dangerous stretch of road. But we’d happily give the mayonnaise sandwiches to a more needy parish. If the council offered an alternative of rock buns, we’d grab them and use them to fill the potholes.”
Somewhere, somebody will hope (and perhaps even believe) that this is true! There could be hundreds, if not thousands, of competitors!
Stupid idea. If they did their job properly they wouldn’t need gimmicks.
Instead of turning necessary public services into a lottery game show how about SCC SCRAP the 4 mile destructive bypass that will only ‘benefit’ Shrewsbury and spend the eye watering millions on relaying ALL rural roads in Shropshire many now getting Dangerous and almost impassable. Heavy agricultural machinery has to move and is tough on road surfaces. Just doing botch up jobs for over a decade has been a waste of money.
nice one Andy. Good to see you have a sense of humour.
And know your dates!
I fell for that one 😂 but in my defence the way Shropshire Council operates makes any mad idea believable
I know it is April 1st but this could reaaally not be a bad idea. How about a trial run?
Ha ha thank you