Road workers told 'I'll get my shotgun'

Road workers are being threatened and abused, West Sussex County Council's leader says

A council leader has revealed some of the threats and abuse workers receive while repairing roads.

The leader of West Sussex County Council, Paul Marshall, said police were called after one resident threatened to get a shotgun if engineers closed a road to remove a fallen tree.

Speaking to BBC Sussex he said staff now avoid wearing council branding on their workwear to try to steer clear of insults.

“Our own highways engineers would normally go out in a big yellow jacket with West Sussex Highways on the back. They’ve started to remove that now they’re having abuse hurled and being sworn at and in some instances attempted to be knocked over by car wing mirrors.”

Mr Marshall said: “Contractors are working hard, sometimes in really difficult situations, trying to repair these roads.

“We had an incident where there was a tree fallen down, we had to make an emergency closure of the road to get that tree made safe."

He said one person threatened the road workers.

“They said ‘If you close that road I’ll go and get my shotgun’.”

Mr Marshall said there had been “significant weather impact” from rainfall in the past three years and he understood residents frustration that roads needed to be closed for [pothole] repairs.

He says West Sussex County Council has a budget of £50m a year for highways but it has invested an additional £50m over the past year to do repairs to potholes.

Mr Marshall was elected to West Sussex County Council in 2017 and has been the leader since 2019.

He said while he had not suffered abuse personally, he was aware of elected councillor colleagues who had.

He said: “These are primarily voluntary roles, they want to make a difference in the community. When they get this sort of abuse it becomes quite challenging for them.”