A ‘hole’ lot worse

MOFFAT resident James Fitzpatrick has long been fed up with a ‘tidal wave’ of debris bombarding his house from a nearby pothole.

And a year after first flagging up the issue, he this week said the problem has gotten worse.

In January 2025 the road crater outside James’ bungalow at Holmend was three feet wide and over six inches deep.

Now after three patches and despite monitoring by Dumfries and Galloway Council’s roads department, the hole measures four feet long and five inches deep at its centre.

And large chunks of rocks and concrete are dislodged with every passing vehicle.

Yesterday, James said: “They’ve come and filled it in three times, the last time was a few days before a cycle rally came through the town. And they patched it with dry tar and this is the result of it: it batters off our windows constantly. You can be laying in bed and all you hear is

a great rush of gravel hitting the windows.

“We can’t answer our door when it’s wet or there’s traffic because the debris washes right up to the top of the door and windows and we’d get soaked and pelted with stones.”

He is frustrated at the lack of meaningful action from the council, adding: “I’ve tried telling them again and again but all they say is that they’re monitoring it and have put on their agenda.

“I’ve swept up the mess day after day, week after week, month after month.

“But I can’t sweep up all the time because it’s not safe for me to be on the road, and it’s only a matter of time before somebody has an accident or is hit with a stone.”

Meanwhile, ongoing frustration about the state of the town’s roads was discussed at Tuesday night’s meeting of Moffat and District Community Council.

Chairman Liam O’Neill said: “It’s something that we’ve complained about for a considerable time, the state of the pavements and the roads. Everything seems to be being ignored and it really is quite concerning.

“We’ve already met with the roads manager when they came out to Moffat and we showed them numerous damaged footpaths and potholes which they dually noted, left and nothing’s happened since.”

Dumfries and Galloway Council were contacted for comment.