Leafy village turned into tourist attraction for having ‘widest, deepest and longest’ potholes in country

Fed-up villagers in a Welsh valley have transformed their pothole-riddled roads into a tongue-in-cheek tourist attraction – complete with theme park-style banners and bunting.

Residents of the Ceiriog Valley, near Wrexham, have erected signs welcoming visitors to “Pothole Land”, promising a unique experience of what they claim are the “deepest, longest and widest” potholes in Wales.

The creative campaign promises visitors “two kilometres of potholes with very little actual road to spoil your fun”.

Local resident Russell Kirk said some parts of the road have potholes up to 18 inches deep. “A Mini could go down them,” he told reporters.

The campaigning residents have nicknamed some of the largest holes “elephant traps”, with depths of up to 10 inches.

The conditions have made parts of the road “treacherous” and “progressively worse”, Kirk added.

The small community sits just above Pontfadog, where residents say conditions have been worsening for five years.

The impact on daily life has been severe, with bin collectors sometimes refusing to venture down the roads and concerns growing about emergency service access.

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“We are cut off from life, forgotten about,” Kirk said.

He added: “It’s better not to get angry… let’s bring the humour and raise the profile of this, so something can be done.”

Finances have been hit, too – Wrexham councillor Trevor Bates, who drives a 4×4, said: “Two broken springs in a few months cost me £600. This is no joke.”

Jan Gilchrist, a resident from nearby Nantyr, added: “The costs to our cars is phenomenal.”

While Edd Rayner, another local, said: “We feel like we’ve been forgotten up here and Wrexham don’t know where we are,” he said. “I’ll gather a gang together, we’ll fill in the holes ourselves.”

Wrexham Council said works are “prioritised based upon annual condition survey data”, but declined to comment further on the situation.

And the issue reflects a wider national crisis, with pothole-related vehicle repairs hitting a record £579million last year.