Anger over 'life-threatening' potholes

The county council earmarked £2m to fix the thousands of potholes left after the heavy snow and have five 'pothole repair gangs' working from an Amersham depot to respond to reported potholes who they say have fixed 1,000 per week.
Kim Payne, of Lynton Road, Chesham, said she has had to pay £1,200 to fix her car after hitting potholes on three different occasions.
She said: "Chesham and Amersham are among the worst affected and it is these towns where the roads resemble patchwork quilts. The maintenance has been so abominable that, if subject to Health & Safety regulations, the majority of roads would be closed as life-threateningly dangerous.
"What is happening is the same old sporadic cold fill and stamp-it-in approach to two or three holes while ignoring dozens of others just feet away. That is fact. We have seen it happen twice this week."
Wayne Etter, of Chesham, said: "The council appears to be just poorly patch repairing the potholes and carrying out temporary works, which is just a waste of taxpayers money.
"Why not just carry out a permanent repair on the hole? The council are also filling some potholes and leaving other potholes until they become large enough to meet their requirements, which is a false economy, as they could have filled many of these potholes in one go."
Tracey Clough, another disgruntled reader who contacted the Examiner, said: "There are currently so many potholes it is not possible to report them all and those that are reported do not seem to be taken seriously.
"The council may have released extra funds to repair the potholes this winter but the money is not being well spent if the repair teams have to travel to the same area more than once and I object to funds and time being wasted on unnecessary repeat journeys."
The county council say they are doing the best job possible with the resources available to them.
Chris Schwier, localities team leader for Transport for Buckinghamshire, said: "Unfortunately, the continuing winter weather conditions has meant that potholes are still forming - even on roads that have been previously treated at a rate well in excess of that normally expected at this time of year.
"We would encourage drivers to be particularly vigilant in these current conditions. The criteria used to prioritise which potholes will be repaired is our usual category one which is a hole greater than 40mm deep and over 300mm in any direction.
"Where an area of road is affected by a large number of potholes, making it unviable to repair the individual defects, we are carrying out some plane and patching works.
"These works again have to be prioritised as above and will be limited to the very worst sites as the financial implications of such works places severe pressures on the limited budgets available."