‘We hear you Alex’: Council say potholes in West Northants are ‘nationwide’ issue as Northampton Saints star voices frustration
West Northants Council is calling on the public to ‘bear with them’ as the authority ‘pushes hard’ to make sure pothole situation is better this winter.
Following Northampton Saints third Gallagher Premiership title, secured at Twickenham on Saturday June 20 after a 26 – 17 win over Exeter, thousands of fans lined the streets of the town centre to cheer on their sporting heroes as they made their way from Franklin’s Gardens to the Guildhall on an open top bus on Sunday afternoon.
The players were in a party mood during the victory parade before taking to the stage outside the West Northants Council-owned Guildhall.
In front of thousands and fans and the media watching on, Saints and England star Alex Coles took the mic in an unexpected moment shouting: “While we’ve got a public platform I think there is something important we need to address.
“The potholes in this town are a joke!”
The crowd cheered, laughed and clapped and he continued: “You need to get the potholes sorted out, that’s all I'm going to say.
"Sort the potholes out.”
West Northants Council (WNC) has come under fierce criticism in recent years about the state of the roads across the authority.
Mark Arnull, Reform leader at WNC who was also at the victory parade on Sunday was accused in February this year of a pothole publicity stunt by by campaigner ‘Daventry banksie’.
He was on not stage at the same time as Coles took to the stage but was photographed with the new Mayor Mike Hallam on the steps of the historic Guildhall building.
After initially remaining tight-lipped about the outburst, WNC decided to address the issue at 3.15pm on Monday via a statement on its Facebook post which read: “Thank you once again to everyone who turned out to welcome home the victorious Saints following their incredible win at Twickenham - what a day it was.
“Thanks also go to a certain Mr Alex Coles of Franklin’s Gardens for taking time out during the celebrations to report a few pothole issues to us.
“We hear you Alex, and everyone else raising this.
"It’s a nationwide issue that every council is doing its best to deal with.
" Please be assured we’re working hard to improve our roads following a really challenging winter, during which we had to throw everything at simply staying on top of emergency short-term repairs.
“We’re now pushing hard with planned maintenance to try and make sure we’re in a better situation by next winter. So our message to Alex and everyone else across West Northamptonshire is to please bear with us while we work through that.”
In January this year the council was given a ‘red’ rating - the worst of three gradings - for how it manages potholes as part of new Government traffic light system initiative. WNC said at the time that it was not aware of the ranking before publication and says it believes the data came from early 2025. The now Reform-led council says it has made “significant progress” since then.