The Transport Secretary and Swindon South MP Heidi Alexander has had her car towed away after it hit a pothole ‘the size of a moon crater’.
Her green Mini Cooper was taken off the road on late a night following the incident on the B4437 near Burford in Oxfordshire last month.
A picture published by The Sun showed the damaged vehicle on the back of a recovery truck. It happened she Ms Alexander made her way to Swindon for a Labour fundraiser.
Speaking to the newspaper, she said: “I joked to my husband that I thought that the astronauts on Artemis II might have seen a similar-size crater when they were slingshotting around the Moon last week.”
She said the incident had been an “added expense and inconvenience”, adding: “I think that’s the experience of far too many people in the country at the moment.”
Ms Alexander insisted Labour is providing councils with record levels of funding to repair roads, but said many authorities are yet to spend the money properly.
She blamed local councils for the condition of roads, including the Liberal Democrat-run authority in the area where the incident happened.
The incident comes after Ms Alexander pledged earlier this year to “end the pothole plague and fix Britain’s roads for good”.
In an article for LBC, she wrote: “You’re driving to work and you hit that same pothole, day after day.
“Our broken roads are a daily misery for drivers and cyclists who face the inevitable choice of either damaging their car or dangerously swerving.
“Potholes also risk unexpected costs, resulting in vehicle repair bills that can be as much as £1,000 – a headache that all of us could do without, especially when times are tough.
“I share the frustration of motorists around the country. For too long our roads have been symbol of decline – that ends now.”
