BRUSHFORD resident Richard Gray has branded a decision by workmen who carried out road surface repairs but left two nearby holes unfilled as "general bureaucratic stupidity".

Mr Gray said for too long people living in the village had endured inconvenience and risked damage to their vehicles and themselves "by the inability of public utilities to reinstate their road-mending horrors".

The most recent related to work undertaken by Wessex Water at the junction of New Road and Market Close.

Mr Gray said local people were delighted when a crew turned up, complete with lorry, small and large plant, tarmac and white-lining material, to reinstate the road surface.

"With noisy gusto, they attacked the offending area, filled it, levelled it and painted white lines on it - and then disappeared into the blue yonder.

"But only 18 inches and 36 inches away still sit two jagged, deep - in one case deeper than the repaired area - and prominent holes."

Mr Gray said the whole area of tarmac around the road junction also look unloved, unrepaired and uncared for.

"This is in addition to the perilous tilting pit by the main sewer cover a few yards up the road and the myriad other examples of unintended mantraps throughout the village."

Prompted by his fictional hero, television sitcom character Victor Meldrew, Mr Gray added: "I expect that the 'powers that be' will explain that the other holes belong to someone else - an interesting philosophical concept that 'nothing' - ie a hole - can belong to anybody.

"But at the very least I would have expected that regardless of instructions from some 'jobsworth' supervisor, the workmen themselves might have splashed a little tarmac in them, if only to avoid the ridicule of people like me.

"You really couldn't make it up."

A spokesman for Somerset County Council, the highways authority, said Wessex Water contractors had carried out the repair to the road.

"The nearby potholes are the responsibility of the highways authority and we will be sending out someone to inspect them as soon as possible."