Warning as motorists take risks on pothole roads

Speeders and overtakers take greats risks

Councillors are appealing to people to slow down on Devon’s 8,000 miles of road network to avoid accidents as pothole reports reach alarming new levels.

It comes after Devon County Councillors Frank Biederman (Lib Dem, Fremington Rural)  and Ed Tyldesley (Lib Dem, Chumleigh and Landkey) witnessed “absolutely scary” high speeds and overtaking on the pothole-ridden B3233 between Barnstaple and Torrington.

In his video on Facebook Cllr Biederman is pictured at the side of the road highlighting the situation when a motorbike overtakes a car at high speed through a series of potholes.

The councillor said afterwards: “I stumbled over my words for a second when that happened but it just proves how vulnerable motorcyclists can be. This road is national speed limit (60mph) but people need to take note of the conditions and drive much slower.”

The two Devon county councillors had been out checking the size of potholes on the B3233  to see if they met the criteria for being repaired by the county council.

They are also flagging up other “dangerous” potholes to the authority which do not meet the size criteria but are on blind bends, causing people to swerve and potentially resulting an accident.

Cllr Biederman said the good news was that the county council was putting an extra £15 million into the 2026/27 budget for repairing potholes and £4 million on highways drainage improvement, gully clearance and other preventative work.

But he added that with decades of underfunding on road repairs, the council could spend its entire £2 billion annual budget on roads and still would not be able to fill in all the potholes.

“We have around 50 gangs out there constantly working on it but every day there is another 500 or 600 reports,” he said.

The council says on its website that it is currently dealing with an exceptionally high level of potholes and carriageway defects across Devon’s road network.

“An extremely wet January, which saw parts of the county receive 200% the average rainfall amount, combined with multiple named storms and several freeze–thaw events early in the month has caused a rapid increase in damage to road surfaces countywide,” it said.

Additional repair crews were being deployed across the country and out of hours working was taking place. In Tavistock in West Devon repairs have been taking place overnight since the beginning of the month.

Cllr Tyldesley said vehicles were bigger, heavier and faster now and caused more damage to the roads.

He said residents were “absolutely right” to be frustrated about the state of the roads but it could not be reversed in a year. He said an additional £10 million would be put into the county council’s budget each year for the next five years to pay for road repairs.

“We are determined to turn the tide, but we can’t pretend that there is a quick fix. Rebuilding a network of this size takes sustained investment, preventative maintenance and a fairer funding settlement for counties like Devon. That is the honest position, and it is the one we will continue to make to government while getting on with the job locally.”