'Potholes need repair before somebody gets killed'

A driver who crashed his car when a car coming in the other direction swerved to avoid a large pothole has said the local authority needs to take action to fix the roads.

Lawrence Titlow, 22, said he was driving home on 29 January when he was forced off the road near Button Oak in Shropshire and ended up in woodland, where his car rolled and hit a tree.

He escaped serious injury, but said: "I think the council needs to start reacting to these potholes before somebody gets killed."

Shropshire Council said it carried out regular inspections and would repair the pothole that caused the crash "as soon as possible".

Titlow, who lives in Highley, said it was the first accident he had been involved in and it had been "quite scary".

He said there was a traffic cone in a pothole on the opposite side of the road, which the other car was unable to drive over.

"They had to force themselves onto my side of the road, therefore I had to react, I lost traction on the left hand side and ended up crashing my car," he said.

His father, John Titlow, said it was "absolutely frightening, he could have been killed".

He reported the pothole to Shropshire Council and said "I consider the council are fully responsible for this".

"The roads around here are just atrocious," he added.

Shropshire Council said it had received a claim in relation to the crash and it was not able to comment while it was being dealt with.

However, it said it had inspected the road on 18 February and identified defects which would be repaired as soon as possible.

It also said: "We carry out regular inspections of the roads but potholes and other defects may occur between these inspections.

"This is why we rely on people reporting them to us."

All repairs were prioritised, it said, and either classified as urgent or added to a "planned programme of works".

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