A Scottish council has expressed health and safety and insurance concerns after a 75-year-old resident used gardening tools to fill in potholes outside her home.
The Guardian reported that Jenny Paterson, who lives on the main street in the village of Halkirk in Caithness, had filled in what she described a '12 foot long crater’ outside her house, the remnant of work that had never been resurfaced, as well as ‘other lumps and bumps’.
With the help of a neighbour, she used a rake, spade, bucket and shovel and spent three and a half hours levelling an uneven section of road surface.
She reportedly cleared the gully, which was said to regularly fill up with debris and earth, then used what she had cleared to fill in the holes.
She said: ‘My lovely neighbour, Jen MacDonald, next door, helped me and the two of us tackled it together – we take pride in our surroundings as does Halkirk as a whole. It’s a beautiful village but Caithness council’s not very interested in us I feel. So it’s up to us.
‘We both got slightly carried away at that stage and tried to level out the area to keep the water away.’ Ms Paterson described the state of the roads in the area as ‘disgraceful’. She said: ‘It’s a beautiful little village with a great community council but unfortunately all the roads desperately need doing.
‘I can’t fill in every pothole so I filled in mine.’
The roads authority for the area is in fact the Highland Council.
A spokesperson said: ‘Whilst the council appreciates the concerns around pothole repairs, it is not appropriate for individuals to undertake repairs on the public highway.
‘This raises health and safety concerns for the individuals involved and potentially invalidates the council’s insurance should any claims be made.’
The spokesperson added: ‘The service is doing all it can to carry out repairs as timeously as possible with the resources available. Potholes or other defects can be reported to the council using the online report a problem form.'
This article was originally published by Highways.
