There are fears potholes in an Angus village are so bad they could cause a fatal accident.
And residents have been told they may have to pay £50,000 each to fix them before the local authority’s bin lorries can safely use the road.
Mario Rizzia, 49, has lived in Letham, near Forfar, all his life.
He says the craters in Braehead Road are not just a hazard for motorists.
“There are numerous old folk who have tripped and really hurt themselves.
“It’s a regular occurrence. Every few months somebody else is getting hurt.
“All it takes is for somebody to bang their head on the wrong side of a pothole and it’s not just a case of a broken bone.
“It’s the luck of the draw when you fall.”
Hunting for the most potholed road in Angus
I asked Angus residents on social media to suggest the most potholed road in the county.
More than 100 people got in touch, naming spots in Montrose, Brechin and Carnoustie.
But the roads around Letham appeared to be in particularly poor condition.
The road we have featured, Braehead Road, is an unadopted road – so the council has no legal responsibility to maintain it.
So it might seem harsh to highlight problems there ahead of Scottish local elections.
But members of the community there feel the council has a duty to step in.
They feel they have been abandoned by the council – living in a village which is home to more than 10% of the region’s 175 unadopted roads.
Braehead Road is so bad Mario’s six-year-old daughter was previously injured by a pothole.
She was five when the accident happened as she played in the street on a pedal cart.
“She managed to get kicked off by one of the potholes and hit the edge of the pothole with her back and her side.
“There were marks all up and down her body.”
What’s next for Letham community?
Because Angus Council is not responsible for unadopted roads, residents have to shoulder the cost of maintaining them.
Council officials have said they would consider adopting the road, but only if residents pay to bring it up to an acceptable standard.
But fixing the carriageway could cost each household in the street upwards of £50,000.
Meanwhile, the council has told Braehead Road residents that bin lorries can’t use the route until it is “brought up to an acceptable standard for our refuse collection vehicles to travel on.”
Mario says residents are being “ignored and ignored about numerous safety issues.”
He adds: “We don’t know what to do.
“Folk have been hurt.”
Angus Council say only ‘nine potholes’ awaiting repair
Having been inundated with responses when I asked readers where the pothole ‘hotspots’ were in Angus, the official line was rather different.
The council told me just nine potholes were awaiting repair at the start of the month.
This was their answer to a Freedom of Information request, asking how many potholes were awaiting repair on April 1.
However, the council does not count potholes on unadopted roads.
Letham community fighting back over ‘pothole’ misery
Fed up residents in Letham have taken matters into their own hands.
Mario is involved in running Letham’s Local Lottery – a scheme raising money for road repairs, local groups and good causes.
He says local volunteers are keen to “do something positive” for their community.
And they are “chipping away” at the backlog of roads repairs as much as they can.
“We’re doing it ourselves.
“We’ve bought the equipment. We go out and prepare all the holes. We’ve got local businesses that help with a mini digger and that.
“We go to the quarry and pick up the tar ourselves.
“We’re doing it better than the council are at the moment.”
How has the council responded?
Council roads officials confirmed they would consider adopting Braehead Road in the future if it was brought up to “an adoptable standard”.
Meanwhile, a council spokesperson said: “As a private road, not on the list of public roads, it is the landowner and users’ responsibility.”
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