Edinburgh nurse and mother of two, Heather Packwood sustained a fractured jaw and broken teeth after she was thrown from her bike last month when she passed over a pothole on Bridge Road.
This week her husband, Steve Packwood, said he is ‘shocked’ to see that no efforts had been made to repair the pothole that caused his wife’s accident and that leaving the road unchanged presents a danger to other cyclists.
Despite the pothole being flagged to the council in August 2022, the road defect was (and still is) categorised as low risk, meaning its repair falls within an unspecified time scale under ‘programmed work.’
This week her husband, Steve Packwood, said he is ‘shocked’ to see that no efforts had been made to repair the pothole that caused his wife’s accident and that leaving the road unchanged presents a danger to other cyclists.
Despite the pothole being flagged to the council in August 2022, the road defect was (and still is) categorised as low risk, meaning its repair falls within an unspecified time scale under ‘programmed work.’
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NewsTranscript
00:00 An Edinburgh resident, whose wife sustained multiple injuries after cycling over a pothole
00:06 last month, has said he is shocked to see the council has not repaired the road defect
00:10 six weeks following the accident.
00:13 Edinburgh nurse and mother of two, Heather Packwood, was cycling home on Bridge Road
00:17 when a pothole caused her to be thrown from her bike, breaking several fingers and teeth,
00:22 as well as her jaw in three places.
00:26 Following the accident on June 15th, Heather's husband Steve learned that the pothole had
00:30 first been reported in August the previous year, but was deemed low risk.
00:34 But Steve said Heather's accident demonstrates the need for a repair, and by not fixing the
00:39 defect, more cyclists are being put at risk.
00:42 I just feel it's complete negligence on the part of the council.
00:46 It was one thing to not repair the hole in the months up prior to the accident, but to
00:53 have been notified that there was a serious accident that was caused by a pothole, and
00:58 somebody has been badly injured, a whole family has been affected by it, and then not to actually
01:05 do something to rectify that, putting other cyclists at risk, is in my view absolutely
01:11 appalling.
01:12 I just can't understand how the council can have not taken immediate action to try and
01:18 make sure that at least this pothole is made safe.
01:21 I mean, there are hundreds of potholes across this city that can create a risk for cyclists,
01:27 but they know this one's dangerous, and they've done nothing to fix it, and I just think that's
01:32 appalling.
01:33 I think it's negligence on their part.
01:35 Yeah, there's lots of cyclists that use this road, and I was fortunate, you know, even
01:40 though I sustained a number of fractures, I was the fortunate one.
01:45 And yeah, it's very sad to see that nothing's been done to try and protect other people.
01:52 And this is not one of the worst potholes that I've seen, you know, and I've seen it
01:57 before and yeah, this time it got me.
02:01 The pothole on Bridge Road was categorised as a priority four level defect by the council,
02:06 meaning no immediate response was required, and the pothole was considered to be of low
02:11 risk.
02:12 But Steve disagrees with this assessment.
02:14 It's absolutely not a low risk, because the facts speak for themselves, you know, there
02:20 was an accident that occurred specifically as a result of that pothole.
02:27 I've been told I can start having a soft diet, and trying to, because these joints aren't
02:33 supposed to be fixed, and they've been fixed for five weeks, so that process of shaking
02:40 all the bones up again is painful as well, so it's shaking all that up again.
02:47 Transport and Environment Convener, Councillor Scott Arthur, said he shared Steve's frustration
02:52 that the defect had not been repaired, despite the council knowing that it may have contributed
02:56 to Heather's accident, and said the pothole on Bridge Road had been assessed, but had
03:01 not been prioritised to be repaired.
03:04 Councillor Arthur added that the Transport Committee should reconsider the funding it
03:07 has allocated to dealing with reactive repairs, to allow defects like this to be repaired
03:12 more quickly.
03:13 It's had an impact upon us psychologically and emotionally, as a family.
03:19 My mother-in-law was quite affected by it when it happened, you know, it caused stress
03:24 and distress to her.
03:26 So yeah, there's been a huge impact upon us as a family.
03:30 I would like to say a huge thank you to St John's staff and the surgeon and the team
03:35 there, they've done brilliant.
03:36 Really good.
03:37 Thank you.
03:39 [BLANK_AUDIO]