Sheffield Road, South Anston Bodge Job: Millions for Vanity Projects! 🛑💸

I am standing right by the Leeds Arms junction coming onto Sheffield Road in South Anston—exposing a 12-month-old danger zone and a classic council bodge job. For a whole year, local drivers have had to dodge a dangerous, axle-breaking road surface here. A year of blown tyres, ruined suspension, and near-misses. And what do we get after 12 months of waiting? A cheap, temporary patch job thrown into the crater that will pop straight back out in the next heavy South Yorkshire rain. The maths is totally backwards. Motorists are treated like ultimate cash cows—paying roughly 75% tax on every single gallon of fuel, alongside sky-high road tax and rising council tax. Yet Rotherham Council can easily find over £14 MILLION to blow on grand active-travel vanity schemes like the segregated cycle lanes past the Magna Centre (which local data shows are barely used!. They can find the cash for traffic-calming speed humps over in Woodsetts at the drop of a hat. But when it comes to basic road maintenance on Sheffield Road? We get pennies and a second-rate patch. Think about the absolute double standard here. If you or I drove a car that was unsafe, the police would hit us with an immediate fine, points, and seize our vehicle on the spot. The law demands perfection from the driver, but allows zero accountability for the council when they leave a busy public junction in a dangerous state for a year. It is time to stop wasting our money on sticky-plaster fixes and empty bike lanes. Resurface South Anston properly! Have you had your car damaged by this junction over the last year? Drop your thoughts in the comments below! 👇 #SouthAnston #Rotherham #Potholes #RotherhamCouncil #UKRoads #WasteOfMoney #Magna #SouthYorkshire #LocalPolitics #anston To: [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected] Subject: URGENT: Dangerous Road Surface Conditions – South Anston (Sheffield Road adjacent to The Leeds Arms) Dear Highways Team and Councillors Baum-Dixon, Blackham, and Tarmey, I am writing to formally report a highly dangerous and unacceptable road surface defect in South Anston. The road running along the side of The Leeds Arms (29 Sheffield Road, S25 5DT) heading towards Sheffield Road has been in a perilous state for more than 12 months. Recently, circles have been painted around some of the worst holes, indicating an intention to carry out basic patching. This is entirely insufficient. A simple bodge job will not fix the underlying deterioration of this surface, which poses an immediate hazard to motorists, cyclists, and pedestrians alike. As road users, we are legally required to keep our vehicles in a roadworthy state or face heavy fines and vehicle seizures. Yet, the council is failing to maintain the basic infrastructure we pay to use. It is deeply frustrating to see millions of pounds of taxpayer money readily available and poured into empty cycle lanes, traffic-calming speed humps in nearby Woodsetts, and various expensive vanity projects across the borough, while our core, everyday road surfaces are left neglected and hazardous for over a year. Furthermore, the council claims to be actively encouraging residents to take up active travel and cycle more, yet the deep holes and broken tarmac on this stretch make cycling here completely lethal. You cannot promote cycling on one hand while leaving the actual roads in a state that actively endangers cyclists' lives on the other. Temporary patching is no longer acceptable for this stretch of road. I request an immediate formal safety inspection and a commitment to a full, permanent resurfacing of this section before a serious accident occurs. I look forward to your prompt response and a clear timeline for these works. Yours sincerely, Tim Wells