Anger as "dangerous" potholes repaired on World Championships route while other roads nearby remain "abysmal"

As the days left ticker drops below three days to go until the UCI Cycling World Championships begins in Scotland, the state of Glasgow roads has again been thrust into the spotlight. This time as politicians, pothole campaigners, a taxi federation chairman, as well as numerous locals, have hit out at the council fixing defects on roads used by the event as others nearby remain "appalling" and "dangerous".

In a piece published this weekend by the Scottish Sun, it was reported how council contractors had been spotted undergoing last-minute repairs to roads on the route, near to where the finish line of the road race events in Glasgow will be found. Nearby, but not on the route, the newspaper snapped photos of pothole-hit roads and "craters" that had not been fixed.

Commenting on the situation, Conservative MSP Graham Simpson, called the Scottish National Party-controlled council's repairs "a kick in the teeth for motorists" and said it was "appalling" that potholes on the route were seemingly being prioritised.

In response to the story, Glasgow City Council insisted that "no specific funding had been set aside for road repairs ahead of the event" and explained how the UCI "requires routes to be in an appropriate condition to hold the races, which we continue to do as part of our usual roads maintenance programme."

However, MSP and former shadow transport secretary Simpson hit out at the "dangerous conditions" locals see every day and called the state of Glasgow's roads "abysmal", comments backed up by pothole activist Mr Pothole, real name Mark Morrell.

"Glasgow is the pothole capital of the UK," he said. "Now you've got the local council desperately trying to patch up the roads when clearly they've known about it long enough. It's appalling. Does it mean we need to have a big cycling event for them to fix our roads? It seems like a bid to prevent bad publicity. 

"But residents and visitors are suffering damage to their vehicles due to roads not being maintained to a satisfactory standard."

Great to see Glasgow being spruced up - new road surface being laid in St Vincent Street today.
Pity visiting cyclists gain precedence over the citizens of Glasgow though, who would have thought? pic.twitter.com/PWZf2thOx0

— Graham Figes (@GrahamFiges) July 28, 2023

Scottish Taxi Federation chairman John Kyle added: "Roads all over Glasgow and the outskirts are in such a bad condition. This is just a temporary fix. I'd like to see the workforce focusing on not just filling in potholes but sorting them properly."

"I'm happy they are fixing roads for the cyclists," a Glasgow nightclub boss also told the newspaper. "But as far as sorting the rest goes, they've had years to get this correct and haven't done so."

In the article, the Scottish Sun notes defects at George Square, St Vincent Place and St Vincent Street were repaired, but shared photos of similar potholes on nearby John Street, Virginia Street, Rottenrow and Bothwell Street, as well as a collapsed manhole cover on West Campbell Street, none of which feature on the road race routes.

Antony Kildare of the charity IAM RoadSmart said "Repairs should be done in a systemic and planned way. It needs to be prioritised and funded to support safer roads, and enable events like this to go ahead with less risk of injury."

Meanwhile, as the UCI's social media account dedicated to the World Championships shared a video trailer for the event, saying "Glasgow is ready to show off the power of the bike" as well as its cultural offering, several replies asked about the state of the city's roads, another suggesting it was also ready to show off the "world-class cycling infrastructure" seen below.

Ready to show off the world class cycling infrastructure @roadcc should do a feature on this and request all of Glasgow's/Scotland's infrastructure pic.twitter.com/17F8LPBfa2

— G61_YPLAC (@G61_YPLAC) July 31, 2023

Potholes have been a hot topic in the build up to the UCI's premier event visiting Scottish soil. Back in February we reported that a local cyclist had raised the alarm over "dangerous" potholes on the road race routes.

Then, in June, a "crude" last-minute "patch-up" of potholes was criticised, a representative from Tadej Pogačar's Slovenian team reportedly saying the Scottish roads are the "worst they'd ever seen".