Surbiton’s annual competition to find the street with the worst potholes is hotting up, with three leading contenders for hole-of-the-year in one road alone.

Take a bow, St James’ Road – the cabbies’ favourite rat-run, close to Surbiton station – which is now in pole position for the prize, with these cavernous cavities… some of which echo if you

SHOUT INTO THEM…

INTO THEM…

into them…

into them…

Outside the Naythai restaurant, next to Cafe St James, is a fine specimen, guaranteed to crock your suspension, and containing an imaginative and ever-growing collection of gravel which – if properly excavated – could double its size.

Further down, outside the Surbiton Club, is an unusual multi-tiered pothole – with a metre-long first step down, and a rare hole-within-a-hole. I think I may have heard a distant cry for help from a subterranean potholer coming from within. Or it might just have been the breeze whistling down St Philip’s Road.

Then, slightly closer to the Maple Road junction, an old favourite (bottom picture). It came second last year, and it’s in with a shout of bettering that this year. Kidney-shaped, like the kind of Hollywood swimming pool you’d expect to see Cameron Diaz stretched out beside, this pothole actually encircles the tarmac from 2019’s repair in a fetching two-tone finish.

If you are aware of larger potholes in a street near you, please do share.