Pensioner fined for filling pothole ‘neglected’ by council

An Italian pensioner who fixed a pothole after becoming frustrated by the council’s alleged lack of action has been fined nearly €900  for taking matters into his own hands and repairing the road himself.

Claudio Trenta has vowed to fight the “injustice” of the fine after using cold bitumen to fill the 30cm hole at a zebra crossing in Barlssina, a small town in the Lombardy region.

The 72-year-old was slapped with a €882 (£767) penalty for violating the highway code.

The council said he carried out a potentially dangerous job in a public space without getting permission to do so.

Mr Trenta’s efforts have also sparked a conversation about the state of roads in Italy, where prisoners were recently drafted in to fix pothole-strewn streets in Rome.

A defiant Mr Trenta said he would file a counterclaim against the council after he was ordered to restore the pothole to its original state.

“If they think I’m an idiot, they are wrong,” he told Italy’s Corriere della Sera newspaper.

“They’ve provoked me, and so now I’m filing a countercomplaint against the council for negligence.”

In a post on Facebook Mr Trenta said he reported the pothole to the council several times over three months but nothing was done.

His efforts have attracted support from Facebook users across Italy.

“Today I sent a protest email to Barlassina town hall,” one wrote on the social media network.

“I’m aware of the realities in Calabria and Sicily, where the streets have been reduced to sieves and if people don’t take action themselves, everything collapses.”

Another wrote: “The council ought to be reimbursing you for the money spent on a bag of bitumen.”

Vittorio Sgarbi, an undersecretary at the Ministry of Culture, joined the conversation.

“In addition to the highway code, there is common sense,” he said. “Common sense should have prompted the local police to thank this gentleman.”

Meanwhile in England, highway chiefs are searching for a mystery motorist who poured concrete into a huge pothole that had forced the closure of a road for weeks.

The unknown pothole filler patched up the crater in Lostwithiel, Cornwall, on a road that had been shut since the beginning of April.

Cornwall Highways said the work had been done “by persons unknown, without consent” and urged the local community to share any information that could identify the person responsible, CornwallLive reported.

A spokesperson for Cornwall Council said an ongoing drainage issue had caused the road surface to deteriorate and Cormac would now be able to resolve the issue now the weather is warmer and drier. It said the road would remain closed until the repairs are complete.