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Towns despair over pothole plague

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By Fiona Reid
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Towns despair over pothole plague

OVER 100 photos have been sent to Dumfries and Galloway Council highlighting Moffat’s pothole problems.

And residents are appalled that despite their action, road issues continue to persist across the town.

Maintenance work on roads in Moffat was initially planned for November 2021 but it has been pushed back several times and is now expected to begin in late September or early October, almost a year later.

Moffat Community Councillor Alan Davidson this week revealed he has submitted over 100 pothole photographs to the local authority.

And Annandale North Councillor Lynne Davis said she has contacted the head of Dumfries and Galloway Council’s roads department, Mike Fawkes, to pin down a date for the work to be carried out.

At Tuesday night’s community council meeting, she said: “The road team is currently working on a large scale surface dressing programme in Annandale and Eskdale. Once that is finished in mid to end of August, they will then revert to working and completing Langholm before moving on to Moffat.

“The anticipated arrival will be in September-October but they will keep elected officials informed who will then pass updates on to the community.”

In response, newly elected community council chairman Liam O’Neill said: “I don’t want to sound cynical but the reason that we’ve been waiting since last November is because they were busy in Langholm, and if Langholm is worse than Moffat then it’s in one hell of a state, there must be people disappearing into potholes there.

“It’s always been the excuse that the road team are in Langholm and then they’ll get to Moffat.”

Meanwhile, Lockerbie community councillor Jan Andrews has raised concerns about several potholes at the entrance to King Edward Park housing estate.

After several complaints from members of the public, Ms Andrews has taken photographs of some of the craters there.

She said: “The pothole situation at King Edward estate is truly awful. It’s been like this for a long period of time. Some of the potholes are massive.

“Drivers can’t avoid them even if they try to. I’ve had numerous complaints about them and people are concerned every time they drive on the road as they could wrack up bills for replacement tyres.”

And residents in Eaglesfield are also concerned about the state of the B722 through their village and this week called on the council to fix the road before there’s an accident.

Responding, a council spokesman yesterday said: “We would encourage any member of the public who wishes to report a road defect to do so directly to us, via our ‘report it’ tool on www.dumgal.gov.uk, by emailing [email protected] or by calling us on 030 33 33 3000.

“If a community council receives reports of road defects, we would ask that community council in question, to use the community council enquiry service to correspond with us.”

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