ON MARCH 26, 2018, Prince Harry was yet to be married, the idea of England making a World Cup semi-final was ludicrous and every Doctor Who ever had been male.

It was also the day a pothole in Cromwell Close, Old Basing, was notified to Hampshire County Council (HCC).

Now, 288 days later, the person who raised the pothole issue has finally been told the job has gone to a contractor for the repair work.

On Tuesday last week, Alex Lee was told the job to get the work had been approved and the pothole had been filled by the end of last week.

Mr Lee spotted the defect when he was campaigning as a Labour candidate to be the ward councillor for Old Basing and Lychpit in the 2018 borough council elections.

He said: "I certainly wasn't expecting it to be 288 days before there was an update. Last year did seem to be the year of the pothole in Basingstoke. I know there is a priority system in place of course but other repairs logged were being done in two weeks."

"I get that it is a Tory-run council under a Tory-run government cutting budgets.

"The problem is that not sorting defects out sooner creates issues in the longer term becoming more costly. I know you can't repair it immediately, but on the whole more needs to be done."

Councillor Rob Humby, executive member for environment and transport for Hampshire County Council, said: “I was sorry to hear that this particular road repair job has taken so long, but I can confirm it has now been completed.

"Safety is our priority, and all defects reported to us are prioritised according to their severity, across our network.

"Smaller defects on routes with less traffic flow, will typically be not be our highest priority.

"However, I would expect defects of this nature to have been repaired more quickly than this one was.

"Emergencies are made safe within two hours, while others may become part of our regular maintenance programme, or scheduled into our proactive Operation Resilience programme for larger resurfacing works.”