Racing car manufacturer claims Lancashire County Council "must be on drugs" over pothole repair plans

The owner of Britain’s oldest racing car manufacturer has claimed Lancashire County Council “must be on drugs” over pothole repair plans.

Lawrence Whittaker, who owns Blackburn-based Lister Cars and is chief executive of warranty firm Warranty Wise, made the claim on Monday evening, and in less than two days his post has been seen 222,000 times.

These are 25 of the worst potholes in Lancashire

On Twitter he wrote: “Dear Lancashire County Council. I’ve finally reached the end of my very long tether. If you think by tarmacking these white circles on the B6246 from Mitton to Whalley you will have repaired the road, you must be on drugs! I pay over 100 car taxes and I demand it be done properly.”

Mr Whittaker is making reference to the council’s habit of marking pot holes with spray paint for filling, rather than completely resurfacing a problematic stretch of road.

He said the stretch of road he is referring to has “Got to be one of the worst in Britain!”. Hundreds of people have replied to the post, many commenting on the “shoddy” state of Lancashire’s roads, but Lancashire County Council (LCC)- who are tagged in the public post - has not. Mr Whittaker has also tagged Ribble Valley MP Nigel Evans into the post, which he asked followers to share.

Lancashire is on course for 10,000 potholes next year - click here for more

This is what Lancashire County Council have to say

A spokesman for Lancashire County Council said: "Potholes are caused by wet and cold weather and councils across the UK are facing a backlog of repairs following a particularly damp winter.

"In Lancashire we engaged extra contractors to add to the resources available to our highways teams through the winter, and now the weather has improved we're carrying out a major programme of resurfacing, high-quality patching and other maintenance to bring our roads into better condition.

"We carry out our regular inspections to try to identify and repair any issues promptly before they become a risk, however potholes can go from being a small defect to becoming much bigger very quickly in poor weather.

"We'd ask people to help us by reporting potholes or any other safety issues using the Love Clean Streets app, via our website or by calling our customer service centre, so that we can carry out prompt inspections and repairs."

It is known that LCC has a £32m capital highways budget for mostly pre-planned maintenance work. An additional £8m for reactive pothole repairs - bolstered by £2m from the capital budget - has been made available, but was enough to do only “small, localised repairs”, rather than patching across a wider area, officer Kirstie Williams explained at a recent meeting.