I'm a pothole 'tourist' and use toys to turn road defects into works of art to highlight problems to council

The quirky footage shows Tim Webb, 66, who snaps photos of a toy coach next to each pothole he visits, before uploading to social media. In the video, the pothole artist says his ‘signature’ began as plastic ducks, when he started campaigning in January 2023, but that quickly evolved when the road cavities ‘dried up’ in the summer.

“I try to create a funny scene, using toys to tell a story,” explains Mr Webb. “Once I had a toy flying saucer ‘crash’ around a group of potholes, and the story was that its GPS got confused and mistook them for craters on its own planet. Another time, it had been raining and there was water in a pothole, so I had a story about a hippo creating its own home.”

He is hoping to spark the local council into action - saying behind the humour lies a serious issue. Mr Webb reported a pothole near his home in Orpington, but they simply placed a traffic cone inside the hole, he claims. Then, when it got bigger, two traffic cones were placed inside. He said: “I thought, what’s going on here? The council had made two visits to the pothole, just to dump traffic cones there. They could have repaired the pothole in that time.”

Mr Webb said the aim of his work is to ‘prompt’ Bromley Council to act. As well as posting his photos on Facebook, he also keeps in touch with the council’s Highways Team. He said: “The hope is to prompt them to do something. Because while this is obviously all humorous, at its heart it's a serious issue. People can damage their cars, which costs money, time and stress. Others, like cyclists, can really hurt themselves.”

A spokesperson for Bromley Council said: “Whilst Mr Webb’s campaign has given much amusement and we welcome all reports from road users on our website, the reality is that we have a methodical and logical process for repairs and this year, despite the torrential rain, we have reduced the number of potholes very considerably.”