A resident has put up a warning sign on the side of a busy road after seeing motorists swerve to avoid a huge pothole.
William Farrugia, who lives in Great Easton, says he put up the sign after witnessing the potential danger the pothole poses – he saw one motorcycle almost lose control after driving through the pothole.
He added there have been other instances where people have had punctures driving through the defect on the Great Easton stretch of the B184 between Dunmow and Thaxted.
He said: “There have been a couple of near misses. People have gone through the holes – someone who lives near told me that they had a couple of cars down the road which had punctures after going through the potholes.
“There was a biker who nearly lost control going through it then looked back.”
He added that drivers are swerving to avoid the pothole that has been deteriorating increasingly rapidly since appearing about two weeks ago.
He added: “The sign works. It’s on a blind bend. So as you go up you can’t see it.”
William added: "The council need to repair these potholes properly. Don’t patch it so it won’t go into that state again."
The council has been criticised for its management and repair of roads – although an additional £12m has been pledged to tackle road maintenance across Essex.
That is on top of the £39m budgeted for 2024/2025.
However, that is well below what is needed according to council reports – it is significantly lower than the modelled deterioration annually of £85.4m over the 2024/2025 budget business case.
It added this level of investment “will not result in improvements to condition, and will now see increasing deterioration annually”.
Levels of claims of damage to vehicles due to poorly maintained roads against Essex County Council have increased sharply.
Between September 2021 and September 2022 there were 1,335 received against the council. Of those, it admitted 40 and denied 1,121.
Of the remainder, it didn’t have enough information to investigate or make a decision on, or a decision has yet to be made. Between September 2022 and September 2023 the council received 2,389 claims against it.
Of those, it admitted 113 and denied 1,714. Of the remainder, it didn’t have enough information to investigate or make a decision on, or a decision has yet to be made.
Essex Highways says it fixed more than 700 potholes between February and March despite record-breaking wet weather.
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Crews carried out a total of 708 pothole repairs during East Anglia’s wettest and warmest February on record. This included 408 on priority roads and 300 on local roads.
It added was a 90 per cent increase in pothole repairs across 2023 compared to the previous year.
A spokesman for Essex Highways said: "In order to maximise our resources, we have to address the most urgent issues first, however all defects reported to us are assessed by an inspector. We therefore encourage members of the public to report any defects through our online Tell Us tool at www.essexhighways.org/tell-us."
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