Action demanded to fix ‘one of the worst potholes ever seen in Leighton Buzzard’

Urgent action has been demanded to fix ‘one of the worst potholes ever seen in Leighton Buzzard’.

Frustrated motorists have complained about having to swerve to avoid the pothole and damaged vehicles when entering the housing estate on Adastral Avenue.

Lib Dem councillor Chris Leaman said he had taken up the case and written to the Defence Infrastructure Organisation (DIO), which was responsible for the road, calling for emergency repairs to be carried out.

The DIO, a government body which looks after the Ministry of Defence’s housing estates, advised Councillor Leaman a month ago that an order had been made to repair the pothole.

Now, after contact by the LBO, the MoD has said the work should be done by the end of the week.

Councillor Leaman said: “This has to be one of the worst potholes I have ever seen in Leighton Buzzard. It is covering almost half the road and is in desperate need of emergency repair. Residents are understandably very concerned about the impact it is having on their vehicles and with cars and lorries swerving the crater as they enter the estate.

“It’s time the DIO took action and fixed the road, this pothole is just getting worse and worse by the day.”

Councillor Leaman added he had received numerous complaints from residents about the pothole which measures more than 1.5m wide and so deep it is almost permanently filled with water.

His letter to Mike Green, chief executive of the DIO, said: “There has for some months now been the most enormous crater in the road that is in desperate need of emergency repairs. Traffic entering the estate are having to drive on the wrong side of the road and sometimes off the road to avoid the pothole which is over one metre wide and almost a foot deep.

“I understand that Annington Homes raised this issue with the DIO on the 25th March. Over a month later and local residents are understandably concerned that no action has been taken to repair this enormous pothole that is dangerous to drivers and their vehicles.”

Residents have backed Councillor Leaman’s post on the Leighton Buzzard Is Great FB page. One motorist has suggested the pothole is so bad bollards should be placed around it while others have suggested potholes in Orchard Drive and South Street are just as bad.

Another post suggested ‘if the community came together (like clapping for the NHS) then this & others would be repaired by now & all your tyres & suspension would still be in one piece’.

An MoD spokesperson said: “This pothole is on a busy thoroughfare and our contractors have been working to establish a time that would be convenient to close the road to carry out works.

“This has now been agreed and the pothole will be repaired by the end of the week.”

> The condition of potholes across the country has reached a post-pandemic high after drivers reported 1 million potholes on the nation's roads last year. And the number of road craters in need of repair reported to councils is at its highest since 2020, according to insurance comparison site Confused.com