I visit potholes and photograph toys inside the biggest ones

NationalWorld.com

Meet the man trying to highlight the pothole issue in his local area - by doing a 'tour' and photographing toys at some of the 'greatest hits'.  Tim Webb, 66, snaps photos of a toy coach next to each pothole in Bromley, southeast London before uploading to social media.

Transcript

00:00 My name's Tim, I live in Orkneyton, and what I've decided to do, this was going back a year or so,

00:05 was decided to highlight the fact that there were potentially serious road defects or potholes in

00:12 my area via the medium of pothole art. I never actually intended to start a campaign, but when

00:17 I started posting images of items in or near the road defects, it became much more popular than I

00:24 envisaged, and my campaign sort of really took off when I got some online media coverage in the local

00:31 press and the radio and TV as well, and then I decided, looking at the way some other people do

00:38 their pothole art, because there's a few of us up down the country who do this, we've all got our own

00:44 unique signature of how we draw attention to it, and I decided initially to use plastic ducks.

00:52 Now plastic ducks are fine in the winter months when you've got potholes full of water, like the

00:56 one behind us here, but in the summer months when it's hot and it's dry, I then decided to move on to

01:02 telling a story by putting items in or near the road defects, and by using a bit of humour,

01:10 drawing attention to the issue, but not forgetting the fact that behind this is a serious problem.

01:17 What I would like to see is some of the really old road defects that have been outstanding for

01:24 literally hundreds of days, is to get them sorted out, because officially they're supposed to sort

01:29 out emergency potholes within two hours, which they do, or road defects within two hours,

01:34 less urgent ones in 10 days, and the other ones, it's gone from me now, I think I'll have to come

01:40 back to you on this one, you have to edit it in, I think it's 25 days, I would hope that what they

01:45 would do is perhaps put some more resources into resolving them, because as a result of my campaign

01:53 last year, to be honest the problem was a lot more serious this time last year than it is now,

01:57 so and as a result of my campaigning I think it helped to get additional contracting resources

02:04 brought into the borough to deal with the backlog they have. Now they've got a backlog of work at

02:09 the moment, but I believe it's nowhere as serious as it was this time last year, and my idea I

02:15 suppose is using humour to highlight what can be a serious underlying problem that affects a lot of

02:22 people who either drive or use the roads around the borough.

02:27 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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