Crawley. Heart of West Sussex.
The town pays more in tax than any other West Sussex town, it employs more people than any other town in the county and still the lack of investment is clear to see.
Coachmans Drive
Just drive down any road in Crawley and within minutes, you’ll see a pothole in the road. There are not just a few of these dangerous chasms in our town – there are hundreds.
Shackleton Road, Tilgate
Crawley has suffered from years of underinvestment and lack of maintenance on our roads and that lack of money is so easy to see.
Crawley Road Junction
They over spent on Fastway by £6,000,000 – has this left gaping holes in highway budgets as well as our roads?
A Chasm in Grattons Drive
These potholes are accidents waiting to happen…. imagine a cyclist avoiding one of these monstorous holes in the road and veering into an oncoming car…..
Massive hole in Hazelwick Mill Lane. The massive can of anti-freeze shows you the scale!
Our council tax went up by 4% last year and it’s due to go up by 4% again this year. What do they spend it all on?
Not on road maintenance!
Another Gaping Hole in Grattons Drive
Check out another website which is from the Crawley Potholes Club, http://crawleypotholes.blogspot.com Although not associated with this blog site, you can see more of the poor state of Crawley’s roads.
It seems since we started our pothole campaign and thanks to this blog being advertised in the Crawley newspapers, those in power in West Sussex County Council seem to have been out filling in the potholes across the town.
This is of course a great success, however should it really take this amount of publicity to get work done that we’re paying for through Council Tax? I understand dozens of people have complained about potholes in their street, it’s a sad state of affairs that it’s taken weeks for the council to carry out this work, which they would never have to do if they maintained our roads.
Here at Crawleypotholes, we hope the council have listened to the people of Crawley and it won’t happen in the future! Time will tell.
In the meantime, we’ll update this blog and leave the original images here as a memory of cars swerving, your anger and potential damage to your vehicle.
February 17, 2009 at 8:03 pm
You are not the only ones to feel aggrieved about this.
WSCC will claim that the bad weather is to blame for worsening roads at the current time, but we have evidence of problems on roads going back to last summer (when there were very few periods of snow and ice, even for England).
February 17, 2009 at 8:05 pm
(sorry, the link in the above comment won’t work – this should be ok).
February 22, 2009 at 5:24 pm
Congratulations for creating this blog, which I am sure will be very useful in putting pressure on West Sussex County Council to improve the terrible state of our roads.
From what I’ve seen, all parts of Crawley are badly affected, the same lame old excuses being trotted out by the Tory led County Council. Take your pick- the weather/not enough government grant/wrong kind of snow etc etc.
If I was a Tory West Sussex County Councillor I would be embarrassed and ashamed of the state of our roads.
February 24, 2009 at 12:17 am
I was watching an interview with a civil engineer/road expert who was talking about the state of raods in London. He said that we should expect lots of potholes appearing after freezing weather because (as we all know) the water gets into any cracks that are there if the road has not been maintained and then expands to make the holes.
The CC keep banging on about the second part of that without acknowledging the first part – YES it is inevitable if we get frost and ice but only if the road was neglected in the first place.
Worst I have seen so far is on the A264. Go from Pease Pottage and just before you get to the Bewbush roundabout there is an accident waiting to happen. No photo because its not a good place to be standing around – all those cars still doing 50 slamming their brakes on as they notice the gorge across the road.
Don’t like to think what it would be like riding a bike (push- or motor-) along there.
February 26, 2009 at 1:53 pm
I can’t beleive how bad the roads are and they have been getting worse and worse for some years now.
I noticed the Portfolio holder for transport (who is from Bognor Regis) thinks this has just happenned after the bad weather – well wake up please! We have had neglected roads for years in Crawley.
March 2, 2009 at 4:02 pm
I live on Heathfield in Pound hill. there are potholes that have been there since I moved in in the beginning of November. Some are now so big that I’m scared to cross the road at night incase I fall in and cant get out! the worst roads I’ve seen anywhere in the country…
March 3, 2009 at 9:11 pm
i also live in the Heathfield area of poundhill and the potholes are so bad my hubcaps came off when doing less then 20 miles an hour! they are so bad people are dodging them thus ending up on the wrong side of the road ( accident waiting to happen ) this is the worse i have seen so far. I have heard a team of people are going around each neighbourhood and repairing them but all that is being done is some tarmac poured in that lasts no more than 3 months! Our roads need a good investment to sustain a good future! please drive carefully!