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Roads in the U.K. are in such a dire condition that one village has decided to mock them by setting up a "pothole theme park". Pothole Land opened last week near the remote Welsh community of Pontfadog. Visitors to the park get to experience the thrills of driving along one of the UK's thousands of badly potholed roads. Park officials promise the park's potholes are "the deepest, longest and widest in Wales". They added motorists will get to navigate "two kilometres of potholes, with very little actual road to spoil the fun". Some of the potholes that scar the road are almost 50 cm deep. One villager joked that, "they're not potholes, they're bomb craters".
Decades of underinvestment have left British roads in an alarming state of disrepair. It is almost impossible to go on a journey without having to negotiate cratered roads, and thus risk damage to your car. A Pontfadog resident lamented that no repairs had been done to his village's roads in over five years. Another villager complained about repairs to her car. She said: "The cost to our cars is phenomenal." Parts of the road are almost impassable. The conditions are so atrocious that refuse collection drivers often refuse to drive to the village. The U.K. government has set aside £1.6 billion ($1.95 billion) over the next two years to provide "immediate fixes" and to repair seven million potholes.
| 1. | dire | a. | To find your way to a place or through something. |
| 2. | mock | b. | To make something worse or less good. |
| 3. | remote | c. | Very bad or serious. |
| 4. | navigate | d. | Large holes or dents in the ground, often caused by something hitting it. |
| 5. | spoil | e. | To make fun of someone or something in a way that is not kind. |
| 6. | scar (verb) | f. | Far away from other places. |
| 7. | craters | g. | To leave a mark or damage something in a way that is hard to fix. |
| 8. | disrepair | h. | To say no or not agree to do something. |
| 9. | negotiate | i. | The condition of something that is old and broken. |
| 10. | lamented | j. | Find a way over or through (an obstacle or difficult route). |
| 11. | phenomenal | k. | Very bad or awful. |
| 12. | atrocious | l. | Very amazing. |
| 13. | refuse (noun) | m. | To feel sad about something that has happened. |
| 14. | refuse (verb) | n. | Things that are thrown away because they are no longer needed. |
Villagers in Wales started a theme park to celebrate its potholed roads. T / F
Visitors to Pothole Land can experience thrills on a jet-coaster. T / F
Some of the potholes in the theme park are nearly half a metre deep. T / F
A villager likened the potholes in his village to bomb craters. T / F
The article said the UK has not invested enough in roads for a century. T / F
A villager said his village had seen no road repairs in over five years. T / F
Garbage collectors never visit the village with potholed roads. T / F
The UK said it would repair seven million of its potholes over two years. T / F
