‘Pure frustration’ leads to Aberdeenshire pothole being filled by member of the public

An Oldmeldrum pothole got so big that a member of the public filled it in himself out of “pure frustration”.

Located on Commercial Road in the Aberdeenshire town, Mid-Formartine councillor Derek Ritchie told The P&J that it is “causing much concern locally”.

Despite the good Samaritan fixing the pothole himself with sand, it was only a temporary fix.

The problem has risen its ugly head again.

Councillor Ritchie said he was told it would take a year to fix.

Aberdeenshire Council confirmed that delays were due to Commercial Road being classified as a “C” road.

These are roads intended for local traffic, as well as being low-speed and on a well-lit section.

This puts it down the priority list in the “scoring mechanism” for improvements.

An Aberdeenshire Council spokesman said: “We apply a consistent scoring methodology to assess defects across all the network which includes on high speed and high usage sections of the network, which are mainly our A and B class roads.

“We need to prioritise our timescales for repair to deploy our crews to the most safety-critical road surface defects that are across our whole 3,500-mile road network.’”

How do Aberdeenshire Council categorise road repairs?

• Defects are categorised depending on the severity of the defect.
• Those posing an immediate danger to the public are inspected and made safe within 24 hours.
• All other defects are inspected and repaired under a risk-based approach.
• The authority tries to minimise the need for a “two-stage approach”.

The spokesman added: “Our roads team are aware of a lot of current and emerging issues with the condition of the region’s road network.

“As well as the system of roads inspections we routinely operate, members of the public continue to play an important role in alerting us to defects.”

Read more: ‘Bonjour Inverurie’: Garioch town twinning to be saved but will be ‘more of an online thing’