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Pothole fake legs 'joke' leads to loan requests

Helen Burchell
BBC News, Cambridgeshire
Sophie Montague/BBC A pair of fake legs are placed in a water-filled pothole with the feet sticking out at the top. The legs are constructed from blue jeans and there are colourful shoes on the fake feet. The pothole is large and is at the side of a road. The water is muddySophie Montague/BBC
The false legs - making it look like someone is taking a deep dive into the large water-filled pothole - are now in demand

A man who drew attention to a large water-filled pothole by placing a pair of fake legs upside down in it said many people with similar watery woes had asked to borrow them after his stunt proved successful.

James Coxall put the "legs" in a pothole on Haverhill Road in Castle Camps, on the Cambridgeshire/Suffolk border on 23 February.

Within days of his photo being publicised, Cambridgeshire County Council fixed the hole, which initially appeared about eight months ago.

Mr Coxall said while the legs were just a bit of fun, his "joke" attracted media attention across the UK and as far afield as Canada, and people were now asking to borrow the legs to draw attention to their own long-standing potholes.

Mr Coxall, a 41-year-old carpenter, said his family just wanted to "have a bit of fun" with the pothole.

Although it was not a busy road, if there were oncoming vehicles you would "have to either stop, or hit the pothole" and risk a blown tyre, he said.

Their "pothole person" creation, made using old jeans, colourful shoes, rags and wood was placed in the deep hole, and weighed down with a brick.

Sophie Montague/BBC A pair of fake legs are placed in a water-filled pothole with the feet sticking out at the top. The legs are constructed from blue jeans and there are colourful shoes on the fake feet. The pothole is large and is at the side of a road. The water is muddy. There is a white car in the background and a green lorry further down the road.Sophie Montague/BBC
The family created the pothole "person" using old clothes and wood
James Coxall A side view of a road showing a large watery puddle to the left and a patched-up pothole in the road to the rightJames Coxall
The pothole was filled in last week

Photographs of it were shared from various social media sites and Mr Coxall said people seemed to "love it", and he was known locally as "a bit of a joker".

It was picked up by a number of media outlets, and more locally, Mr Coxall has been receiving requests from people wanting to borrow the legs in the hope of highlighted that their own potholes need fixing.

James Coxall A pair of fake legs are placed against a garden shed. They are made from jeans and wooden poles and there are a pair of colourful shoes on the wooden feet.James Coxall
The legs are now in the family's back garden while Mr Coxall decides what to do with them

On the day the council workers arrived to fill in the Haverhill Road hole, Mr Coxall's wife rescued the legs and they are now in the family's back garden.

"A lot of people would like them, and I don't know about that, but as I'm a carpenter, I might try something else - like the Titanic or a submarine - I could build those," he said.

He added he had received a number of messages about council workers marking up other potholes in the south of the county over the weekend and while he was not sure his "legs" were the impetus behind the work, he hoped his stunt had helped.

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