Potholes blamed after retired police officer, 90, dies following a fall on a bus
The friends of a retired police officer from Nottinghamshire who died after the bus she was on hit a pothole have called for urgent repairs to the state of the county's roads.
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90-year-old Marjorie Bramley was travelling on the bus to get her COVID vaccination last December when the bus struck a pothole approaching her stop, causing her to fall and break her back.
She was taken to the hospital, where doctors said they were unable to carry out an operation because of Ms Bramley’s age and medical history. She died 7 days later in the hospital.
Speaking to LBC, Marjorie’s friend Mary Cooper described her as “90 last August and very fit… well enough to be going about, and living alone independently.”
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Mrs Cooper said Ms Bramley had taken a bus “with her walker” and was getting ready to get off when “it hit a pothole.
She added: "It just threw her back against a metal step on the bus and fractured her spine.”
Mrs Cooper said that after a wait for an ambulance, Marjorie arrived at the hospital and went “from being able to go on a bus to get a Covid vaccination to suddenly, within two days, being on palliative care.”
Gerald Cooper told LBC: “She was screaming in pain, it was awful. I had tears in my eyes.”
Mary added: “She went from being a very dignified lady, she was in the police force and in the Royal Navy, to this, and all we would have wanted is to hear that she passed away peacefully in her bungalow when the time was right.”
Mr Cooper said: “Our friend Marjorie would have lived on many years”.
The Coopers said potholes are now a daily hazard on Nottinghamshire’s roads. “It’s absolutely awful,” Mary said, with Gerald adding, “It’s a nightmare.”
“You can find a new pothole appearing each day… it’s like you’re driving on a zigzag all the time just to avoid things,” Mary said, while Gerald warned: “It shakes you up… you’re worried about damage to the car, or bursting tyres. We’re swerving out to get around a pothole, and it’s very, very dangerous.”
The Coopers want to see urgent action taken over the state of the county's roads to avoid anyone else facing the same situation.
Mrs Cooper said: "Please, please do something about it before anything else happens. You know, it's bad enough that one person has passed away. Please go and look at the safety of the roads.”
Last week, Reform-led Nottinghamshire County Council (NCC) declared an emergency on the roads because of the number of potholes, and the amount of reports being made for repairs, as well as announcing another two million pound funding package to try and crack down on the backlog of potholes, which has been funded by savings and efficiencies.
Speaking to LBC, Mick Barton, NCC Leader, said of the current potholes:” Absolutely. They're shocking. They are shocking.
"And it's due to the colder weather. We always have it in the winter, believe it or not. This winter isn't the worst we've had. We've used twice as much as last year in the quick fix during this winter.”
Mr Barton added: “Next year we're looking at different products. They'll be more expensive but we've got to do it. But before next winter, we've got to get the roads to a standard everybody likes.
"We've got a three-year programme as well because we're not going to do it all overnight. We've got 2,752 miles of road we've got to cover. So we're going to do the best we can, and we're going to do the worst first.”
At a full NCC meeting held last Thursday, one Reform councillor joked that we used to drive on the left of the road, and now we simply drive on what is left of the road.
They then blamed the previous Tory administration for underfunding the highways and leaving the roads in a mess.
Councillor Bert Bingham, who’s responsible for Highways in Nottinghamshire, said: “After years of underinvestment in the county’s roads, many are in a poor condition. The recent wet wintery weather has caused more damage, and residents are rightly frustrated by the abundance of potholes.”
He added: “I can assure them that Nottinghamshire County Council is taking this very seriously, and today I approved 35 sites for urgent resurfacing. This work will cost approximately £2 million and will be funded from underspends and efficiency savings from within the current highway budgets.”