Lead Councillor responds to pothole competition, where Wrexham winner said “I feel as if my council do not care”

A Lead Councillor has hammered a competition to highlight Wales’ worst potholes after a photograph of a Wrexham road came out on top.

Last month the National Assembly launched a contest asking residents to send in pictures of the worst affected roads in the country, and as we reported yesterday the winning entry was revealed as an image of a lorry passing a large pothole on the A525 near Bronington, which was taken by Antony Maybury from Wrexham.

Mr Maybury compared travelling on the county’s roads to ‘driving the Mars Rover’ and had a pop at Wrexham Council in his victory statement saying “The roads are in a sorry state and something needs to be done. I feel as if my council do not care so by winning I now hope Wrexham Council take action and make our roads safer.”

However, the authority’s Lead Member for environment and transport has criticised the contest and said the Welsh Government should focus on increasing funding for road repairs instead.

Cllr David A Bithell said: “We are currently spending over £3m on improving our road surfaces. We recognise that we, along with most other local authorities, are faced with a mammoth task following the harsh winter we had and the detrimental effect it had on the road surfaces.

“I’m not sure how helpful this current exercise by the Welsh Government has been apart from highlighting the gross underspend from national governments in maintaining road surfaces.

“A copy of our highways repairs programme is available on our website.”

The competition was launched to raise awareness of the Committee’s inquiry into the state of Welsh roads which will publish its findings in the autumn, with many thinking it was a spoof when we ran the story back in June.

The winning photograph, below, will feature on the cover of the Committee’s report and be part of an exhibition, along with other shortlisted images, at the Senedd from 3rd to 14th September.

By Liam Randall – BBC Local Democracy Reporter (more here on the LDR scheme).