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Thump! Wallop! Crack! Crash! It doesn’t matter what sound they make we all know straight away what it was. The dreaded pothole menace. Like a parasite it festers on our roads and streets and it’s not surprising that their spreading like a disease!

If you weren’t already sure, potholes are caused by typical British rainwater seeping into tiny cracks in pavements and turning into ice when typical British winter weather arrives. Water expands when it turns into ice making the cracks bigger and bigger until this recipe for disaster leaves us with a whole country full of these villains. Aggravated by continuous ramming by cars, Lorries, trucks, vans and buses it seems like the fight against this enemy is a steep up-road battle.

But wait, all may not be lost, as many new efforts have been made to help contain and control the problem at hand in order to claim back our streets. Bromley council have set up a new ‘report a pothole’ scheme which can be done on the phone or online via email making it simple and easy to target specific areas for repair. In addition to this the council officials are aiming at fixing more potholes annually than ever before with almost a new street everyday being completely cleared of these infections but for some residents this still isn’t enough.

Charles Walsh, a pensioner living from Goddington has had to live with potholes ramming into his car constantly on his trips to and from his house. ‘With all the money the council gets especially from parking fines you would think they’d be able to fix a couple of holes in the ground. Mr Walsh has had to have his windscreen repaired twice in the space of 2 years and claims that the constant bumps and jolts on road are aggravated the stress in his back. ‘There such an inconvenience and any of the little kids cycling could easily get seriously injured by one’ the 70 year grandfather argues.

Unfortunately, many people have been injured by this deadly fiend already and one student Hassan Rashid was tragically killed near Crystal Palace Park in July last year when his motorbike went over a pothole and crashed.

Bromley council neither want a repeat of the events of winter 2008 when residents of The Knoll in Beckenham had to bring together £1,500 of their own money which they offered to private builders in order to fix the gaping craters of a potholes spread throughout their road. They critised the council who they said had done nothing to fix the road after they made numerous amounts of pleas for help and repair.

It isn’t difficult to understand why road-users might be apprehensive of the upcoming months of winter weather with not only potholes to worry about but also ice, snow, wind, rain and fog. It’s crucial to have a joint effort from both the community and the council if we are going to have any chance of fighting this lethal foe but will it be enough I wonder. Perhaps it’s just an inevitable problem that potholes are going to exist in our roads but does that mean we should stop trying to fix them?