A 90-year-old woman who was left stuck after her tyres were blown out by a pothole got hungry and ordered a takeaway to her car.
A kebab shop came to the rescue when Jill Hireson, 61, and her elderly mum Kath Cains found themselves stranded in the village of Bitton, Gloucestershire.
The pair were on their way to lunch yesterday and were already hungry before their car suddenly hit a pothole and its front tyres were blown out.
While they were waiting for AA, Jill decided to get creative and ‘make the most of what could have been a bad situation’.
She called First Choice Kebab Shop, in Barrs Court, and used a local cottage’s postcode to put in an order for pizza, chicken, chips and homemade coleslaw.
‘It was a very interesting conversation with the delivery driver, but they found us and were very friendly and helpful,’ Jill said.
A photo shows Kath enjoying some chips in the passenger seat.
A repair technician from the AA arrived to help in just over an hour, before Kath’s grandson picked her up and Jill took the car to a nearby garage, where she got the two tyres replaced for £200.
Jill said: ‘The road is terrible for the potholes and I wanted to warn other motorists. Speaking to someone on the road, they said it was down to years of the council patching up the problem without sorting it for the long-term.
‘The potholes wrecked my car and left us in a difficult situation. Thankfully, the AA were fabulous and we were able to get food out to us. But I wouldn’t want others to face the same thing.’
Data from the Department for Transport suggest it will take South Gloucestershire Council 742 years to repair its crumbling roads and potholes.
In the last financial year, the council carried out strengthening or repair work to just 1.9 miles of its 1,409.8 miles of B- and C-category roads.
South Gloucestershire Council said: ‘This time of year is traditionally busy in terms of repairing potholes as the cold and wet weather over the winter months takes its toll on our road surfaces.
‘We repair around 11,000 potholes a year, although it is difficult to provide an exact number as repairs may include multiple potholes under one job.
‘We have filled 17% more potholes since the start of January compared to this time last year.’
They added the council was investing more than £12 million in maintenance and improvements to the existing transport network this year, and that crews were out five days a week and sometimes on weekends filling potholes.
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