PAPERING OVER THE CRACKS

CRUMBRIA: 28/05/2025

By Arthur Sleep

THE News & Star is reporting that one of Crumberland Council’s top officers has told a meeting that pothole complaints have dropped 25% and that: “Facebook doesn’t fix potholes.”

With the usual lack of journalistic depth that readers have come to know and loathe, the Carlisle “newspaper” failed to follow up on the 25% claim or the officer’s eye-catching reference to social media.

The paper decided it must have been an encouragement to the public to report potholes through the official channels.

But as one vexed Councillor grumbles to the Chronic: “The article doesn’t ask why residents have had to turn to social media to complain rather than official Council channels! And if complaints have dropped 25% could it be that communities are giving up on reporting them to the Council and getting nowhere?”

Like potholed roads, the article contained one or two holes, and failed to go deeper than the surface!

And could the council officer’s remarks also be an unsubtle dig in the direction of a trouble-making Facebook Page here called “Cumberland Pothole Watch?”

The campaigning Page was very prolific last year at highlighting the Council’s inaction over lunar-like roads. There were highly embarrassing photos of potholes in places such as Flimby, Aspatria, Distington, Hayton near Carlisle, and Workington. Even a pothole complainer from distant Sedbergh joined in!

The Page must have been a right pain in the backside for the Council’s highways team, although since last spring it has lost its way.

And for the Council to advise that the tax-paying public should effectively leave Facebook alone is like the road calling the tar black. Crumberland Council regularly posts on Facebook – especially when it comes to highlighting their own pothole brilliance.

It said in November: “Zero pothole reports in Carlisle!…we don’t want to brag…but okay, we do!”

Let’s just say that the post attracted plenty of “laughing face” emojis, with one saying: “This has to be a joke post!”