'Pain in the backside of councils' - Banburyshire's Mr Pothole receives national award
'I didn’t know you got awards for being a pain in the backside of authorities' - Banburyshire's Mr Pothole is delighted to receive a national award for his efforts to improve our roads.
After 13 years of challenging councils and government over Britain’s failing roads, Mark Morrell – known to most as Mr Pothole – has received a Highways Champion Fellowship Medal at the first-ever Highways Champions Awards, established by Highways Magazine.
The medal recognises Mr Morrell’s long-standing campaign for effective road maintenance, work that has made a lasting impression on the highways industry. It has also won him the admiration and gratitude of thousands of road users and found him on TV screens sharing his expertise.
Receiving his award from celebrity broadcaster Vernon Kay, Mr Morrell said: “I didn’t know you got awards for being a pain in the backside of authorities.”
Key milestones of his campaign include founding National Pothole Day, using legal notices and persistent campaigning to secure millions of pounds of road repairs and reporting thousands of potholes that were subsequently fixed.
He has given evidence to the Transport Select Committee for its Filling the Gap report and helped countless people with advice on pothole damage claims.
Mr Pothole has raised awareness through high-profile stunts, including filling a pothole with Pot Noodles – a story that attracted hundreds of millions of hits and coverage in newspapers in the UK and as far away as including India.
He took a tank to the Department for Transport for the Pothole Britain documentary, then drove an orange tank around Parliament Square and Whitehall for National Pothole Day 2020.
He has become one of the world’s best-known pothole campaigners and a go-to media expert, giving thousands of interviews, including to international broadcasts.
Mr Morrell’s efforts have helped educate politicians of all parties about how potholes form, what makes an effective repair and the risks to road users, while also showing them how cracks, rutting and delamination can reveal the condition of a carriageway.
He created The Pothole Truth, a website sharing information and insight into Britain’s pothole crisis, informed by his own research, investigations, opinions and hands-on experience of the country’s road maintenance problems.