If the government won’t plant trees for us, let’s rise up against the rampant pox of potholes and neglected tarmac, and turn potholes into pot plants! That’s the gist of this week’s “Seven Days” with IAN MEIKLE.  

“MY concern is that so far two vehicles turned over there, within a month. I witnessed the turnover… Lives were threatened by this hole,” said community spokesman Wolde Kristos.

We’re talking potholes. Big potholes. 

Michael Baker, a taxi driver who had been manoeuvring around the same dangerous pothole for days, said he was afraid there would be more accidents. 

“It terrible man! People a guh swing and it a guh cause collision,” he said.

I think Michael might have given away that we’re not talking about Canberra and the rampant grey pox of its endless potholes, but we might as well be. 

In Westmoreland, Jamaica, residents, frustrated by the size of an unfilled pothole on a main road, last year planted a banana tree into it in protest. It was enough to get the authorities to quickly fix the gaping hole, reports the “Jamaica Observer”.

With the same sense of larrikin optimism, some wags in inner-south Yarralumla were likewise inspired to make a protest, planting an oak tree into a pothole in Hampton Circuit that they reckon is bigger than the Jamaican one. 

My Yarralumla snout tipped me off a few days ago with a picture of this muddied mess, then followed a couple of days later, noting not only had the hole developed proportions that would have Jules Verne dribbling, but it was now encircled by eight very official witches hats. As an aside, one has to wonder if you go to the trouble to drop around witches hats, why wouldn’t you start filling it in instead, but such is the way of the ACT government.

In his “Whimsy” column last week Clive Williams, without pointing any fingers (but you can), listed five factors that make roads susceptible to potholing – insufficient pavement thickness for heavy vehicles; poor quality initial construction; inadequate drainage; failures at road joints or inserts; and defects and cracks left untreated.

He also reported that thanks to La Niña’s persistent rainfall, about 8000 potholes have been repaired in Canberra in the past year compared to the normal average of 3000. 

So there it stands in Hampton Circuit, one defiant little oak tree, ringed by colourful petunias, that epitomises the government neglect that’s been dormant for years, until the rain came and exposed the city’s poor road maintenance. Just as covid did for the failing ACT Budget. 

SPEAKING of Yarralumla, the inner-south suburb pioneered and remains sniffily proud of wrapping big red Christmas bows around its fat, old street trees. 

But, shock/horror it looks like it’s been grinched by Narrabundah! I made a random left-hand turn the other day into a street I’d never been in before and there in Bundeela Street a beautiful phalanx of red with bowed ribbons on every single green, leafy street tree on both sides of the road. The effect was quite lovely. See you and raise you one, Yarra. 

READER Bob Collins was at an auction in Flynn last month and happened to notice a “derelict” govie house across the road. 

“The grass and weeds were fence high at the rear and the front was completely overgrown,” he says.

“When I questioned a local, I was told that the house has been sitting empty for over two years.

“As far as anyone knew it was going to be sold at some stage as it was still owned by Housing ACT. 

“The house did not look too bad so I entered the yard to have a closer look. As you can see from the attached photo, the house is basically in good condition, with no cracks in the brickwork, the roof and guttering in good condition and the windows all okay.

“We read about the shortage of housing in the ACT and just accept the fact, however when you actually see a property that could be economically brought back to life again for a needy family with kids, it makes you mad.”

The house is at 6 Bennett Place if anyone cares to look at it. Make yourself at home, the back door’s open. 

Ian Meikle is the editor of “CityNews” and can be heard with Rod Henshaw on the “CityNews Sunday Roast” news and interview program, 2CC, 9am-noon. There are more of his columns on citynews.com.au