A STREET dubbed by its residents as the worst in town for potholes may not get the resources needed for repairs after more than 10 years of problems.

Residents in Sedgebrook, in Liden, have been struggling with their road surface ever since it was dug up over a decade ago to fix a faulty electrical fuse, and after appealing to the council had some of the holes marked out for repair.

The council have said the road is not a priority case so they cannot afford to resurface the entire street, and point to their good record of keeping compensation payouts at a minimum.

John Lay, of Sedgebrook, said: “I doubt if you would find anywhere as bad as this in Swindon. I do not know why nothing has been done here for years.

“We first came to Sedgebrook in 1977, and for about the first 15 years we always had power cuts. It took them that long to find out the source of the problem by tearing up the pavement and the roads all around the area.

“The roads here have been dug up that many times because they could not find the fuses which were blowing the power supply. I had a word with our local councillor who organised someone from the council to come and have a look at it. After speaking to them they said they would get it patched up the following day.

“A week later they came back and marked out where some of the potholes were in yellow paint. But they only marked half of them, and I wondered why they had left so many out. Farther down at the end of the road they had not even bothered.

“It is an absolute disgrace. Now they are saying they do not have the money to go ahead with it. They have done resurfacing work in similar areas, and it does make you wonder whether they are ignoring Sedgebrook.”

Coun Julian Price, (Lab, Covingham and Dorcan), said: “This case of another road in disrepair is further reason why the Council needs to invest more money in road resurfacing. It is simply not fair on the residents living in Sedgebrook to have to put up with this.

“When roads have such significant numbers of potholes like in Sedgebrook, residents then have their vehicles damaged which means they have to spend more on their cars.”

A spokesman for Swindon Council said: “Sedgebrook is a road which serves a housing development only, and it isn’t a through route.

“The condition of the road surface isn’t bad enough to meet our criteria for priority repair, and we have explained this to a resident from the road who has asked us on several occasions to repair the surface, and also to local ward councillors.

“We just don’t have the resources to make every road billiard-table smooth, and we have to deal with the worst ones first.

“All our roads are inspected regularly and we do repair dangerous or potentially damaging pot-holes promptly, which is why our compensation payouts to drivers are relatively low compared to other authorities.”