Deep pothole on busy Hastings road has already costs motorists hundreds of pounds

The pothole is at the bottom of busy Harold Road, a bus route in Hastings Old Town. Local woman Judy Atkinson, whose car hit the hole, said: “It is at the bottom of Harold Road, near the centre line, right on the corner by the junction with All Saints Street.

"It can be difficult to miss the hole, as parked cars force you into the middle of the road. I have reported it to East Sussex County Council.”

Reacting to Judy’s warning post on the Old Town Facebook page, a number of drivers said they had hit the same hole, leaving them with expensive repair bills. One resident said: “It munched my rim around the tyre and broke it into pieces.

Another commented: “There is also a bad one on The Ridge, by the new Flagship school, which is very difficult to see as it is one the side of a manhole cover.

One angry poster said: “Car tax used to be called the Road Fund Licence and the money went to maintaining roads, so what exactly do the Government do with our £160 plus a year that we are forced to pay? With the number of people paying that our roads should be perfect."

Others pointed out that the hole could cause serious injuries to a cyclist or motorcyclist. Potholes become more dangerous in the wet weather as a deep hole can appear to be a puddle.

An East Sussex Highways spokesperson said: “Since the start of the new East Sussex Highways contract in May 2023, our teams have repaired a total of 16,281 potholes across East Sussex, including 1,943 in Hastings. As we look to the new year, we have a series of larger scale patching works planned for various area of Hastings including All Saints Street, Edmund Road and Harrow Lane.

“We are aware of the pothole in Harold Road, close to the junction of All Saints Street. Repairs are due to be carried out shortly and we will continue to monitor the situation until these are complete.”

“We are responsible for more than 2,000 miles of road so prioritise our work, according to locally approved policies to ensure potholes that present the greatest danger to road users are repaired as quickly as possible. To fix every pothole regardless of whether they are an immediate safety issue or not would mean a higher bills for council tax payers.”

“The majority of our investment in the county’s road network focusses on preventative maintenance such as patching and resurfacing to stop potholes appearing in the first place and we do this by looking at road condition and priorities against the available budget.”

“Our highways stewards carry out regularly check on roads across the county, but with more than 2,000 miles of carriageway to monitor we would urge the public to report any defects directly to us at www.eastsussexhighways.com”