Ryan Wilson, the producer of the Jeremy Vine Show on BBC Radio 2 had posted a video of him falling off his cycle after hitting a "cavernous" pothole outside John Lewis on Oxford Street on Tuesday 2PM, and asked the council to fix it, so "what happened to him on his way to work didn't happen to other cyclists".

The Council, acting with the briskness previously unseen by most cyclists, proceeded to fill the pothole, which Wilson later called a "beast" (if you're unfamiliar with road.cc pothole lore, a beast is smaller than a potmonster, but just bigger than a pothorror), in just over two hours.
Do good things actually happen?

"Thanks again for flagging this with us. We take road safety seriously and can confirm that this pothole has now been filled," wrote Westminster City Council on Twitter the next day, posting a photograph with the time stamp of when the job had been completed.

Wilson, who was left with a bruise on his thigh and a detached rear wheel (hopefully the derailleur and the chain are okay), may not be the most pleased, but his alerting the council and the council's swift movement has definitely impressed other cyclists, including Mike van Erp, better known as Cycling Mikey.

Others however, were a bit more sceptical of the pothole filling. "I assume that is simply a short-term emergency patch as that is going to loosen and come out very quickly with traffic running over it," wrote one person, while another sarcastically wrote: "Give us another text in two weeks when it's as bad as ever and we will come out again and fill it with".

Danny Williams, CEO of Active Travel England, meanwhile thanked the cab driver following for "good driving", as he crept to a halt behind the fallen Williams. I know, the minimum, right?

With the non-existent summer being taken over by another spell of relentless rains, we might be in for some more potholes, as if there already weren't enough...

"London's #Cycleway1 route is constantly blighted by potholes. One of the many, many downsides of having a supposed Cycleway route on roads used by heavy motor traffic," wrote Toby Edwards.

Hopefully, this incident does mean the good work of fixing the ever-increasing potholes on Britain's roads keeps continuing.

https://road.cc/content/news/cycling-live-blog-27-july-2023-302811