Olly Wells

Former Liberal Democrat Councillor for Knaphill Learn more

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Is Surrey the Pothole capital of the UK?

by admin on 28 March, 2010

Is Surrey the Pothole capital of the UK?  Kia Motors certainly thinks so, but Surrey County Council strongly denies this.  Kia Motors suggest there are 1,998 potholes in Surrey, something Surrey County Council suggests is far too small a number and uses this to pour scorn on the survey. 

However, I take the view that I personally see more potholes around Surrey than I do anywhere else in the UK and that it is probably more accurate to take the Kia survey as giving a sample for each part of the UK rather an actual total and with this method, it suggests that the samples taken shows Surrey as the pothole capital of the UK as it had the largest sample of potholes counted.  Something that I do not think will be a surprise to any road user in Surrey. 

I am glad that Kia Motors did this survey as I expect that if Surrey County Council was to do the same survey it would have spent far more money on a complicated survey commissioned by an expensive consultancy rather than doing it cheaply using modern technology such as the Epicollect software that allows users to record data on a google map using a smart phone, if this was used nationally we really would know where the pothole capital of the UK is http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8258501.stm . I doubt we ever really will see technology such as this replace expensive consultants, but if we did it would certainly mean councils had more money to spend on services.

   2 Comments

2 Responses

  1. I’ve been busy reporting a few specific incidents in Knaphill via the excellent http://www.fixmystreet.com/ and SCC seem to be doing a good job of fixing them within a couple of weeks of being reported – for example, the rather nasty pothole that was on the junction of Barnby Road and Anchor Hill.

  2. ollywells says:

    Thanks for letting me know that it works to use fixmystreet Mark. Problems can also be reported at http://www.surreycc.gov.uk/env/hews/hews.nsf/AtoZRTF?OpenForm It seems to take a bit longer than a couple of weeks, so I will try using fixmystreet now.
    Olly

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