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Expedition Log: The Great Newark Abyss
 

Date: 23/01/2026
 

Location: Sector 4, North Face of the Great North Crater

Altitude: Roughly 3 inches below sea level

Entry 08:30 hrs.

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Our expedition has reached the precipice of what the locals call " Great North Crater." ......a treacherous canyon of majestic proportions. We have established Base Camp next to a discarded Lucozade bottle in the foothills of the imposing castle ruins; the smell of deisel and local frustration hangs heavy in the air.....

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Entry 10:15 hrs.

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Progress is slow. Lead climber "Boulder Bob” is currently traversing a sheer cliff of exposed Victorian cobblestones, "No-Hands Nige" looks on, ever watchful.

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The terrain here is unstable; every time a marshalls bus thunders past, the entire Ossington tectonic plate shifts, threatening to trigger a rock fall

We’ve had to belay off a stray cigarette butt for safety. Wish us luck

The geology is fascinating, a layer of cheap bitumen, a fossilized layer of excuses, and a bedrock of pure resignation.

Bob, ever the optimist, claims he can see “improvements on the horizon.” Nige, clutching a flask and muttering about sovereignty, insists the same, time will tell.

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Entry 12:00 hrs

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Oh, dear reader... Tragedy struck our expedition........We spotted a brave local soul in a Vauxhall Corsa attempting to navigate the pass.

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The vehicle struck the East Ridge with a sound like a civil war canon boom. The brave fellow uttered a traditional Newark war cry, something about "road tax" or "council taxes", before teetering on the edge for what seemed like a lifetime...then........it went over, a blur of metal and dispair.

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We heard a dull thud, the snap of a suspension spring, a wimper......and then silence.

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Nature has reclaimed that Corsa now.

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It belongs to the hole.............

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We now embark on our return.. wish us luck, dear reader................pray for our safe passage.

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__________________

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It’s all a bit of fun for the camera, of course, but it does highlight how shoddy our roads have become, and dangerous. One does wonder if Newark is aiming to become the first town in England accessible only by pack mule, Sherpa and rappelling gear……

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Have a word Nottinghamshire County Council l (and contractors ) ....I think i saw evidence of one of your long lost highways inspectors in a crevasse... could have been a Morlock though.....or another subterranean bipedal ... it was quite dark down there

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Yes, it may be a bit weird or eccentric for a grown man to photograph miniature mountaineers in holes in the street. I’m fine with it. My knees, less so.

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and yes, these photos were actually taken in potholes in Newark by myself Dave Fargher on a Google Pixel 6 Phone.

 

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The “Why” Behind the Tiny Climbers

 

“If I shout, I’m just another voice in the wind.”

listen to the BBC radio slot here

 

The idea came from frustration rather than novelty. Like many residents, I’d reported potholes properly and repeatedly through official channels, sending photographs, locations, and descriptions. Yet months later, many of them were still there,  often larger and more dangerous than before. It felt like the conversation had become invisible.

For example, the 2 mile drive from Waitrose to Balderton, i spend more time looking at the road and swerving to miss them when i shold really be paying more attention to what's in front of me, frankly, its become dangerous, 

Temporary fixes don't cut it. and I'm a little bit fed up of accepting mediocrity when it comes to road repairs.

So instead of adding to the noise of complaint, I decided to change the way the issue was framed. By turning potholes into miniature mountaineering scenes, I wasn’t trivialising the problem, I was reframing it. If the holes weren’t going to be filled, then I’d treat them as permanent features of the landscape and show just how absurd that has become.

 

Newark is famous for its Civil War history, but the roads shouldn’t look like they’ve just survived a siege in 1646. We’re rightly proud of our heritage, architecture, and role in national history, but there’s an irony when the streets themselves begin to resemble a battlefield. Roads shouldn’t feel bombarded or besieged. When residents and visitors are braking sharply, swerving around damage, or stepping gingerly across flooded craters, it chips away at the sense of a town that’s cared for. The project highlights that contrast, a place rich in history, struggling with very modern and very solvable problems.

 

Traditional pothole photos tend to blur into one another. People have seen countless images of damaged roads and angry locals pointing at holes, and eventually their brains just slide past them , it’s a classic case of outrage fatigue. The miniature figures disrupt that pattern. People stop scrolling because they’re curious. They want to understand what they’re looking at, and once they do, the scale of the problem lands much harder. The forced perspective provides instant context, turning something that might look like a shallow dip into something that suddenly feels hazardous.

 

That moment of humour opens the door for a serious message, and that’s why the images are shared so widely.

 

What really underpins the project is the lived experience of reporting these defects and watching nothing change. Between April and October 2025 alone, 8,860 potholes and road defects were reported to Nottinghamshire County Council, so this clearly isn’t an isolated issue. Potholes are logged, acknowledged, and in some cases marked as inspected or fixed, yet many remain physically unchanged. Sometimes they’re worse, filled with water so you can’t judge their depth at all. There’s a peculiar frustration in being told a problem no longer exists while you’re actively steering around it. That disconnect between what’s reported on a system and what exists on the road is what pushed me to document it creatively rather than bureaucratically.

 

What adds to that frustration is the gap between what’s promised and what people experience on the ground. A £72.7 million highways investment has been approved for the 2025–26 period, yet many residents feel they’re seeing a fossilised layer of excuses rather than permanent fixes.

 

While councils report repairing thousands of defects, a significant proportion, around 15 to 20 percent, are temporary cold‑fill patches that fail within months. The result is familiar: the same hole reappears, the same damage occurs again, and the cycle continues.

 

This isn’t just inconvenient, it’s expensive. Nationally, the average pothole repair bill for a driver is now around £350 per incident, and total UK vehicle damage linked to potholes is estimated at £645 million. These figures aren’t abstract. They’re visible every day in cracked alloys, broken suspension, and near misses. 30 minute after I posted the article, my sister actually hit a pothole and tore her tyre.

For many people, it’s not a question of if a pothole will cause damage, but when.

 

When you can joke about a pothole having its own ecosystem, that tells you something has gone badly wrong. The laughter draws people in, but it also carries an uncomfortable truth: these aren’t isolated defects anymore, they’re features people plan their journeys around.

One of the most telling aspects of the project has been the reaction from the public. People have recognised themselves in it. Many have shared their own stories of avoiding certain streets, replacing tyres, or bracing for impact when they know a stretch of road is coming up.

 

The humour opens the door, but the response shows the problem runs much deeper than a single street or a single complaint.