They complained their street kept getting worse. The answer they got was harsh

Residents on an ‘out-of-sight’ road in north Manchester say their street is in such poor condition that ‘it looks like the Somme’ when it rains.

People living on Lion Brow, in Blackley, say potholes and fly-tipping plague their lives daily. The issues have come about because Lion Brow is unadopted, one of the 40,000 roads in England and Wales which, often because of a historical quirk, the local authority, in this case Manchester, is not obliged to maintain.

To adopt the road, council bosses say it needs to be brought up to an ‘acceptable standard’ at the cost of residents, which they say will cost them £26,000. David Hopes, who works in museum services and lives on the street off Rochdale Road, describes it as ‘a third world street in a first world city’.

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“It’s not good enough for local residents, we deserve better,” he added. “There have been no material changes when the issues are easily fixable.”

David also said that fly-tipping was a regular occurrence on the road, with a dump in late February seeing an ironing board, bed, and garden waste discarded by residents’ homes. Another resident, who wishes to stay anonymous, said the ‘road is disgusting’ and that ‘it just keeps getting worse’.

“The road is out of way, out of sight, out of mind,” he added when asked why he thought the council hadn’t done more for residents. However, Coun Lee-Ann Igbon — the authority's executive member for neighbourhoods — said the council is ‘fully aware’ of the problems, and is looking at installing more measures to prevent fly-tipping.

“We are fully aware of the Lion Brow residents' concerns and our neighbourhood teams have met with them to discuss measures to address concerns across a