Unadopted Barlaston road repairs could cost residents £250k

Dozens of potholes are dotted along Lakewood Drive, Barlaston, with one measuring about 30cm (12 inches) deep

Residents living on a pothole strewn road have been told they will have to pay £250,000 to have it repaired.

The holes are dangerous and getting worse, residents on Lakewood Drive, an unadopted road in Barlaston, Staffordshire, said.

The county council said it would be be prepared to adopt it if the majority of residents were in favour, but it would need to be up to a suitable standard.

Residents said they had been quoted £250,000 to get it up to standard.

"We have just been forgotten," local resident Valerie Wilkinson said.

Several drivers have suffered punctures to their vehicles due to the potholes which include one about 30cm (12 inches) deep, she added.

"They are huge, the holes are and I think it is a safety thing now."

The residents said their research showed the estate, Lakewood Drive, provided homes for workers at the nearby Wedgwood factory from 1952.

'An assault course'

But it was the only road unadopted when the properties were sold off to private buyers and housing associations during the 1980s.

Twenty-seven residents live on the road and one of them, parish councillor Daniel Bentley, described it as "an assault course".

"We had a lady who is in a wheelchair who is afraid of going out because she has actually fallen in the dark into a pothole and had to be rescued by a passer-by," he said.

He said the £250,000 had been quoted by the local authority as the cost of work needed to get the road up to a standard at which they would consider adopting it.

Residents were unaware the road was privately maintained until about five years ago when a tree came down and the council told them it was not their responsibility to clear it, he added.

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Cabinet member for highways David Williams said the road would need to of a certain standard so it was "not an additional cost to Staffordshire taxpayers".