A pothole-ridden road has been compared to something out of a warzone or the “surface of the moon”.
Adelaide Road in St Leonards is an unadopted road which is covered in potholes.
An unadopted or private road is a road which is not maintained at public expense by the local highway authority.
Responsibility for repairs, lighting, and cleaning falls entirely on the “frontagers” – the owners of properties adjoining the road – rather than the local council, which can lead to significant private costs.
While there is no obligation for councils to maintain these roads, they have discretionary powers under the Highways Act 1980 to carry out repairs and recover the costs from the frontagers.
They typically only do so when the road poses a danger to traffic or the public.
A spokeswoman for East Sussex County Council has stated that “to adopt a private road in a poor state of repair would place an unacceptable burden on the taxpayer”.
Self-styled pothole influencer Juliette Dodd, who goes by SinkySnap online, creates tableau scenes around potholes in Hastings in a bid to highlight the problem.
After sharing a photograph of Adelaide Road online, she was flooded with comments from shocked residents.
One person said "like others have said I expected barbed wire and manned trenches to accompany the shell holes”, while another questioned if it was “possibly the road to Rome, as it is very holey”.
Another dubbed the road “crater alley” while another suggested “Moonscape View” was a more appropriate name.
“I walked to a friend’s house the other week and couldn’t work out how people managed to live there without broken ankles,” another said.
Juliette has speculated that it may be in the homeowners’ interests to allow the road to remain as it is to prevent it from becoming a “rat run”.
"The residents of this unadopted road in St. Leonard-on-sea have decided to allow it to stay in a state of disrepair to deter drivers using it as a casual short cut, although many still do,” she claimed.
A spokeswoman for East Sussex County Council said: “East Sussex County Council can adopt unadopted roads but, given our limited budget which has to cover work on more than 2,000 miles of adopted road across the county, will only do so if there is sufficient benefit to the public and the road is constructed and maintained to an appropriate standard, including drainage and street lighting.
"To adopt a private road in a poor state of repair would place an unacceptable burden on the taxpayer.
“There are many unadopted roads across the county and we have a process for applying these roads to be adopted by the county council.
"Information about that process can be found on our website."
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