Friday 26 February 2010

Barnet Council Potholes Special - Does the new system work?

I thought I'd try a little experiment. I thought I'd see how well Barnet Council's new website which you can use to report Potholes in the road works. Here's a selection of pictures taken in my road. As you can see the state of the Highway looks more like a scene from a warfilm, with crater sized potholes, some full with water. Clearly these are serious hazards to cars and in places the road is in a state of collapse.

I notice that there have been several reports of these already made on the Councils website

http://barnet.fixmystreet.com/report/97227
http://barnet.fixmystreet.com/report/98137
http://barnet.fixmystreet.com/report/91182

Now I notice that some say the day, but not the date. The oldest is dated 25th January, over 1 month ago. Others just say Wednesday and Sunday. Anyway, I've just made a new report. Let's see just how long they take to fix. By the way, whilst I was taking these pictures, a van shot past and kicked up a stone, which left a large dent on a parked car. I strongly suggest that you avoid parking in Millway till these are fixed. There are huge numbers of lumps of rock in the road. It wouldn't surprise me if someone gets injured as if the rock had hit a person it would have rather badly hurt them.

To report your own problem click here - http://barnet.fixmystreet.com -

If you reported a problem and the system hasn't worked (let's say you've waited more than 14 days) please email me by clicking here.

I think the idea of this website is superb. I just hope that it works and the problems get fixed. I am surprised that the Council don't ask their own dustmen to keep an eye out, after all they cover more or less every inch of the Borough. Would that be too simple?


It rather looks like Barnet Councils statement that they would fix all of the Boroughs  potholes by the end of last week was a tad overoptimistic -
http://www.times-series.co.uk/news/5009965.Potholes_should_be_filled_by_end_of_week_says_council/

It rather looks like Tory roads supremo, Councillor Daniel Thomas, has the Midas touch in reverse. He's only been in the job for under two months and we've run out of grit and all of the roads have fallen to bits !

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