The ‘forgotten’ Lincolnshire road that’s so riddled with potholes it ‘could be a golf course’
The council’s highways team visited the area after the council was challenged on it
A woman who lives on a “completely deteriorated” road says repairs to her car have cost over £2,000 this year alone. Laura McGregor-Brown believes Gorse Hill Lane, between Lincoln and Sleaford, is one of the worst in the county.
She says she’s counted hundreds of separate potholes on the two-mile stretch, and claims the council is turning a blind eye to it. “The road is a nightmare in both directions. It’s bad and getting worse,” she told the Local Democracy Reporting Service.
“I’ve had to get extra insurance because the tyres on my car are blowing all the time. It has needed new ball joints, coil springs and steering – the latest bill cost £2,000. A lot of people drive on the grass verge rather than the road itself because it’s completely deteriorated.
“There are so many holes I should open a golf course. We have carers come fairly often to look after my brother and they really don’t like it because it damages their cars too.
“An ambulance had to come down recently as well, and the staff were saying how bad the road was for the patient.”
She says she has complained to Lincolnshire County Council numerous times over the last four years, but the state of the road has only got worse. A pothole crew was seen patching up the road after the Local Democracy Reporting Service asked the council about it.
Another long-time resident described Gorse Hill Lane as “the forgotten road”. “It will easily break your suspension if you’re not careful,” he said.
“You can’t patch that many hundreds of potholes. The problem is that lorries from farms need to use the road, so it will soon be as bad as before you started repairing it.”
Cllr Michael Cheyne, Executive member for Highways at Lincolnshire County Council said: “Clearly this road is in need of deeper repairs than it has been getting, we’re sympathetic to the issues and we’ve recently come up with a plan for this road – which is ranked in the lower hierarchy of types of road on the local network – for which we are looking to find funding.
“To do what we can in the meantime, we’ve had gangs working on the most severe issues as they became apparent in February, September and we’ve now had a gang out in December too.
“We have a programme to carry out a higher level of repairs on potholes which will happen in January, also, and all of the repairs that have happened so far have been concentrated on the part of the road that best serves the single house that is down there.
“We’ve been trying to sort out a clear route for the resident to use. Clearly the road is in a poor state and has been for a number of years now, so we’re looking at what can happen in the future, but the caveat on that has to be the amount of cash available. That’s something we have to seriously consider on every scheme going forward.”
