Council apology over worker's temporary pothole fix
A video was shared on TikTok
A Northamptonshire council has apologised for an “embarrassing” video of a roads worker appearing to fill in a pothole by stomping the material into the ground.
During a progress report given on the highways contract on Monday (January 13), West Northamptonshire Council (WNC) stated that it had been made aware of a video concerning one of its Kier road workers, which was posted to social media platform TikTok in the last week.
Cllr Anthony Bagot-Webb, assistant cabinet member for highways, told the committee that the clip shows the West Northants operative looking like they’re “dancing on a pothole filling the material in”. The Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) believes the clip has since been taken down.
Kier Highways has confirmed that the event took place on West Street, Moulton and that a permanent repair has since been carried out by their team.
Cllr Bagot-Webb said that things had been going “reasonably well” with the roads partner in his report. He said that there had been ‘significant improvement’ in the condition of the road surfaces during the summer and autumn months, but added that they could get “tripped up”.
WNC’s executive director of place and economy, Stuart Timmiss, told the committee that the video was “unfortunate” and “embarrassing”.
“On January 8, a supervisor went out on site to look at an area- it was a pothole that had already been raised for permanent repair. He thought while he was there he would provide some ‘quick fix’ so, unfortunately, what he did was fill the pothole in a way which isn’t the standard and shouldn’t have been done.
“Kier has very much said that an internal investigation will happen. Normally, temporary repairs are done with a particular process and a particular machine. That wasn’t in this case; it’s a case of somebody who tried to be helpful and that backfired.
“I think it is embarrassing that that video is out there, I think it is embarrassing to Kier that they’ve been found that that practice has happened there. That won’t ever happen again, I have been assured.”
A Kier spokesperson said: “We are dedicated to providing safe and sustainable road solutions to the people of West Northamptonshire and are aware of a video circulating on social media showing a temporary road repair.
“The method used in this video isn’t up to our usual standards, and we are taking the necessary steps to prevent a recurrence of this. The temporary fix poses no risk to the public, and a permanent repair will be completed on 16 January 2025.”