ROADS campaigner Mr Pothole has praised £830,000 work by the county council after revisiting a road voted the worst in Oxfordshire earlier this year.

Mark Morrell teamed up with the Oxford Mail in April after we asked readers to tell us the worst kept road in the county.

READ AGAIN: The road before it was fixed 

Mr Morrell said on a visit back: “It’s not completely finished – but of what I’ve seen, it’s good.”

And work to resurface Kennington Road, which got that title, is nearly complete after the county council put £10m more into its roads budget this year.

Oxford Mail:

The state of the road last year

That decision meant work like that on Kennington Road could be done now rather than in 2019, when it had been initially scheduled.

Mr Pothole had mooted legal action against the county council after visiting the road and finding a crater aside the Edward Road bus stop that was 36 inches wide, 55 inches long and four inches deep.

ALSO READ: 'Fix this road or go to court'

Oxford Mail:

On his return to Kennington, he found a whole new road, completed by the county council’s contractor Skanska.

He added ‘cutting out’ work around drains and manhole covers which will be completed over the next few days might mean the new road could last 20 years or more.

He said: “I have seen other councils not doing it and it is good [that Oxfordshire County Council is doing it].”

Oxford Mail:

He praised portfolio holder for environment, Yvonne Constance, who he said has been at the forefront of plugging more money into highways.

Resident Sandra Bonner lives across the road from the bus stop, where the sub-standard tarmac once lay.

She said: “It’s a lot better. The work they have done at night has not affected us at all.”

Kennington residents were full of praise for the engineers carrying out the work after years of waiting for the road to be repaired.

A man, who did not want to be named, said he wanted to make clear ‘how grateful everybody is’ after waiting for a long time for the resurfacing.

He said: “[The engineers] have been magnificent. It’s not just [Mr Pothole] who has been complaining, we’ve been waiting for this for years.”

WHICH ROAD NEXT? Now this road is fixed, what is the new 'worst road' in Oxfordshire?

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In his Budget on Monday, Chancellor Philip Hammond said £420m extra would be spent on roads and highways repairs.

But Mr Morrell said that was equivalent to ‘peeing into the sea’, with that money likely to only mean a few million pounds more for each councils’ efforts. He estimated the backlog on UK roads could amount to £30bn.

The county council maintains about 3,000 miles of roads in Oxfordshire but its budget for the work has halved over the last decade because of Government cuts.

Skanska carries out all the work across the county. As part of a contract agreed earlier this year, the city council is responsible for carrying out road repairs in Oxford.

According to the county council, it has had 495 reports of road defects over the last week and has fixed 685 problems in the last month.

An Oxfordshire County Council spokesman said: “Most of the Kennington Road resurfacing scheme is complete.

“Frosty conditions prevented us concluding some of the work on the speed humps. Subject to weather conditions, this will be completed shortly.”

Most work should be done by the end of this week.