A noisy manhole cover in Union Square has been silenced after residents complained it was too noisy.
Kate Pothalingam, a member of the Islington Liberal Democrats, was knocking on doors as part of a campaign to chat to locals when a resident mentioned a noisy manhole disrupting sleepy locals in the night.
Member of the Islington Liberal Democrats, Kate Pothalingam, was knocking on doors as part of a campaign to chat to locals when a resident mentioned the manhole, stating that every time someone drives over it in the night the noise travels and it wakes them up.
After investigating the manhole herself, Pothalingam uploaded a video to Twitter, demonstrating the noise of the hole.
“I’d lined my husband up as a stunt driver and when I pointed to the cover that was a signal to drive past,” she said.
Although in Islington, the manhole does not belong to Islington Council and instead is a utility cover belonging to Thames Water and the area of road is the responsibility of Hyde Housing. Pothalingam has emailed both organisations but received no reply.
Hoping to run as a candidate in the local elections on the 5 May, Pothalingam wrote a letter to local residents stating that they had identified the problem and were going to take action.
One local resident sent a reply email very much doubting their ability to get it fixed. “She basically said that they had been trying for months and had had got nowhere so good luck.”
It was this same resident who on the 9 March got in touch to report that the hole had in fact been fixed. “There was a real sense of ‘yes we’ve done it’” said Pothalingam.
She suspects that the council fixed it after Islington Council’s Principal Officer of Streetworks, Tina Connolly, emailed Pothalingam to inform her that the tarmac was a temporary repair and may not last.
She suggested that if the matter was repeatedly reported by residents, then this would likely get Thames Water involved.
The manhole is part of broader issues of the poor quality of roads in Islington. Pothalingam acknowledges that Islington is struggling with resources like any other council, but she explained that as a cyclist herself she would say the roads need to be improved. “Today as I was cycling twice my shopping almost fell out of my bike basket because I went down two deep holes.”
But a problem is that not all of Islington’s roads are maintained by the council. Any road with a double red line is owned by TFL as it is identified as an important route, only the double yellow lines belong to Islington Council. This creates challenges in who’s responsibility it is to improve the roads.
