‘Pothole Land’: Frustrated residents turn road into tourist attraction

Residents on a road in North Wales have taken matters into their own hands by turning a road full of potholes into a tourist attraction.

Signs have been erected in the village of Pontfadog in Wrexham advertising “Pothole Land”.

According to the sign, the attraction features the “deepest, longest, widest potholes in Wales“.

“Two kilometres of award winning potholes with very little actual road to spoil your fun,” the caption on the sign adds.

A sign advertising "Pothole Land" in Wrexham

The council has now begun work to fill the potholes, though many are not yet fully filled.

Local farmer Donald Roberts, 76, told Sky News lots of the potholes were “impassable”.

“It has come to this signage down the road to get some result,” Mr Roberts said.

Donald Roberts, 76, farms near "Pothole Land"
Image: Donald Roberts

He said the condition of the road had made things “harder” for him as it takes him “a lot longer to do [his] work”.

“The condition of the road from my place, I’ve got cattle up the road, and I can’t go up it with a tractor because the holes are that big, because I’m afraid of bursting the tyres on my tractor,” he added.

The condition of the road in "Pothole Land", Wrexham
Image: The condition of the road before work got under way. Pic: Tim Raddock

Tim Raddock, 57, who lives at the top of the road, told Sky News the condition of the road was “extremely bad”.

“They’re ever-growing potholes because they don’t get any attention, they just keep growing. Any bad weather and you’ve probably got another couple of centimetres on the depth of them,” he said.

“From looking at them myself, they appear to be only half-filled in cases, or short of the existing road surface.

“So you could say it’s better than nothing but it’s not going to take long for the frost and the weather to break them up again and we’ll be back to square one.”

Tim Raddock, who lives near "Pothole Land" in Wrexham.
Image: Tim Raddock

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Mr Raddock said he had “sympathy to a certain extent” with the local council as “they only have so much money” to spend on fixing potholes.

But he said it was “great” the signage had prompted a response from them in that work had now begun to fix the potholes.

Wrexham County Borough Council declined to comment.

Source : Sky News