There’s a bloody big hole outside my house. A sinkhole, maybe. A pothole, certainly. A hole, of which I hope neither myself, my car, my house or the whole street falls into.
The hole appeared on Tuesday last week. Starting off as a circular gap in the road about a foot wide and a foot deep, it has cracked and widened since it formed. I’m unsure whether the tarmac around it has taken on a concave quality since, or whether it’s just my overactive imagination.
A manhole cover right next to it suggests, to my untrained eye at least, a problem with water somewhere below eroding the ground. It is roughly a metre and a half from where I, under normal circumstances, park my car.
The hole was reported to Aberdeen City Council swiftly after appearing and was attended to early on Wednesday morning by four men and two vans. Yet, the hole remains. Protected by classic plastic orange barricades, it now keeps a watchful eye over Albury Road.
A visit from Scottish Water, shortly after the protective barricades were raised, aside, there seems to be little progress in filling the slowly enlarging gap in front of my gate.
Now, I, like most, enjoy a little drama – a spot of street theatre if you will. The local community Whatsapp and Facebook groups have been abuzz, and I’ve been able to make jokes about visiting my Uncle in Australia. But there’s a point where a hole in the street just becomes inconvenient.
Several days after reporting the pothole and nothing has been done
I was impressed by the initial speed of response by both ACC and Scottish Water, but, at time of writing, we sit several days further on and nowt has been done.
I stare at the hole and the hole stares back and I wonder if my whole house might tip over into it, like it was situated on a crumbly Norfolk cliff, or on the boat in The Poseidon Adventure.
It seems an excruciatingly mundane thing to complain about. I think of my younger, pre-house owning, pre-car driving self seeing me now, first-world problems in hand. But it is rather annoying.
We pay for a parking permit to park my car in front of my house – we now cannot, as we’d be blocking the road, an issue aside from that of my car taking any Jules Verne-like adventures under the Earth’s crust. We also simply cannot drive the most straightforward way around the neighbourhood.
There’s also the expensive fear of knackering something in the motor, which I’ve already been through once and dare not repeat.
Hey, at least I’ve had the opportunity to finally have my tuppence on the most classic of local issues – the downsides definitely outweigh these wee positives though.
The big gripe though is the worry of what on earth is going on under the road; the fear that grips every time a bin lorry or delivery van careers around the barricades, usually at over the 20mph speed limit. Whether what remains a reasonably small issue right now will literally cave-in.
Ultimately I worry about someone getting hurt. It appears bad enough to me to potentially cause that sort of trouble, no matter the wonderful job the barriers are doing. The fear is further collapse.
Meanwhile, the hole attracts local visitors. While I was away for work on Friday my other half sent me a message that a man, his dog and two children were peering over the barriers into the abyss. ‘It’s quite the attraction’ she said. ‘It’s like an episode of Father Ted’, replied I.
It’s not quite ‘Pothole Land’ in Wrexham, which has made headlines in the wider UK in the last few days, but left unchecked we’ll get there.
Potholes have had their fair share of media recently, what with the nick of many roads down South. Scotland and the north-east definitely have their fair share of the issue and they are the scourge of many an Aberdeen and Shire motorist.
Aberdeen potholes should form part of the city centre masterplan
On a trip to St Machar Cathedral at the weekend, for a concert of Oasis songs performed on strings, I discovered that the back half of The Chanonry, where it reconnects to Don St, might be the worst road in Aberdeen. If there’s still a masterplan, it should involve filling these in.
But, this is what chronic underfunding of councils and public services gets you. Persistent issues that damage cars, bicycles, people and ultimately the morale of communities. And, as the AA has reported, a record repair bill across the UK for affected cars of £579m. Eyewatering.
Shortly after reporting the hole I received a reply from customer service at ACC to tell me that the issue ‘is not a safety concern’ and that they won’t be doing anything further at present, but to report again if it ‘gets worse’.
So now I sit, teetering on the brink, waiting on the widening of the chasm so I can phone the council, mobile in one hand, the other pushing my house back from the edge.
Hopefully, come the next column it will have been filled in, and my car will be back to its usual spot and I’ll have erased the Albury sinkhole from my memory. Either that or I’ll be on the phone to an estate agent, asking what the selling price might be for subterranean dwellings.
Colin Farquhar works as a creative spaces manager and film programmer in the north-east culture sectorÂ
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