Teenager claims potholes are like 'moon craters'

Ben Thornbury feels his council should do more to improve the condition of roads

A teenager has vowed to keep pushing his campaign against potholes, which he says blight his town.

Ben Thornbury from Malmesbury, said repair work carried out by Wiltshire Council on Abbey Row last year, never solved the problem.

The 19-year-old feels the authority should do more to improve the condition of roads.

In a statement, Wiltshire Council said it invested an extra £22m over two years towards road repairs while nationally, the government has pledged a record £1.5bn.

Mr Thornbury told BBC Radio Wiltshire, the roads still look like "the craters of the moon".

"The council patch-worked the potholes along Abbey Row, but they've just come back which shows the works not either been done properly or something else has to change.

"There's several other roads around Malmesbury and all around Wiltshire, so I'm sort of broadly calling for most of the potholes to be fixed around the area because they're really bad and people are having to have their tyres repaired," he explained.

'Making good progress'

Councillor Nick Holder said extra money has already been put into road maintenance.

"We're aware of the issues in Wiltshire, we're putting more money into it and we're making good progress," he said.

"There have been some department for transport statistics published in the last few weeks which shows that we across Wiltshire has made a 9% improvement in the amount of roads that are being repaired compared to the national average."