A PENSIONER can finally sleep at night now that a noisy, broken grate in the road outside his house has been fixed by the council, 13 months after he first complained about it.

John Alexander, 80, an ex-tyre distribution co-ordinator, complained to the Gazette & Herald last month after the grate had not been fixed by North Yorkshire County Council in more than a year.

Mr Alexander was so angry he threatened to withhold a portion of his council tax if nothing was done,.

However last week the council finally repaired the grate.

He said: “It’s really nice and quiet now, we can watch TV and settle down at night in peace.

“Since I was featured in the Gazette & Herald, a number of people have approached me and asked me what I’m going to do about the other roads that need repairing, such as Westgate in Pickering, and some roads in Thornton-le-Dale.

“I’m not going to become some kind of road fixing superhero, but I do agree that something needs to be done.

“Westgate in particular is full of potholes, even on the path you are quite often walking in puddles.

“You shouldn’t have to ring up and get nasty for the council to fix these things.”

Richard Marr, the county council’s area highways manager, said: “We don’t have the resources to maintain a perfectly smooth highways network.

“Utilities companies have the right to dig up the roads, and there are certain tolerance levels for the evenness of the road.

“With the weather we are having at the moment, we get a lot of freeze thaw damage to the road, which causes potholes, and this time of year is not good for affecting permanent repairs.

“However, we still try to keep the network as smooth as possible.

“Although it took a year to fix the grate outside Mr Alexander’s house, this is not out of the ordinary.

“We had hoped to do the work before Christmas, but when we had the snow in December we were faced with conflicting priorities.”