Nigel Farage and vigilante gardener team up to fill potholes with flowers, highlighting council failures

Nigel Farage has been filmed assisting a viral vigilante gardener by planting flowers in ‘monstrous’ potholes.

A video posted on TikTok showed the leader of the Reform UK party stepping out of his car in Staffordshire to approach well-known landscape gardener Harry Smith-Haggett and asking, ‘What are you doing here, mate?’

Mr Smith-Haggett, known on social media as Harry_pretty_potholes, then replied: ‘I’m just filling these potholes in, Nigel. 

‘I don’t have the licence to tarmac and I don’t have the licence to alter the road surface, so I thought I would make them look pretty.’

Mr Farage then went on to describe Mr Smith-Haggett’s work as ‘unbelievable’ and ‘amazing’.

After agreeing to help the gardener, the MP for Clacton observed as Mr. Smith-Haggett filled a hole with soil. Later, the MP got hands-on himself, taking a plant called the ‘blue beast’ and planting it in the ground, adding soil around the sides.

Mr. Smith-Haggett gained online popularity in August 2024 by sharing TikTok videos of his efforts to plant greenery in the streets of Horsham, Sussex, to raise awareness of the poor condition of the area.

Dressed in a customised hi-vis pink vest which reads ‘Pretty Pot Holes’ on the back, the vigilante gardener said that he started filling potholes with flowers after becoming ‘fed up’ with the state of the roads. 

With more than 72,000 followers, one of the community activist’s videos, under the username Harry_pretty_potholes, has even racked up 3.8 million views.

Speaking to the BBC previously, Mr Smith-Haggett said that Horsham residents had ‘been complaining about the potholes for years’ and that he aspired to draw attention to them ‘without being dangerous or without causing a problem’.

One of his popular videos shows him covering seven potholes on a single street in the colourful floral displays.

Meanwhile, in another video, Mr Smith-Haggett is seen dumping buckets of what he describes as ‘premium topsoil’ inside potholes, then using the trowel to evenly distribute the earth across the hole.

He then takes out a plant, commenting: ‘I don’t know what this plant’s called, but it is a beauty whatever we are working with there.

After packing the flower pot into the potholes newly acquired soil, he says ‘that will allow our roots to sprout out nicely in there I think.’

The vigilante gardener’s videos have seemed to divide viewers, with some commenters providing tips on how best to grow plants in those conditions, while others have even urged him to visit their local area to help with their potholes. 

However, other commenters raised safety concerns at Mr Smith-Haggett’s actions, with one user saying: ‘This is dangerous mate. People won’t think it’s deep and may drive over it. Also it’s not even stable it will fall down.’ 

Meanwhile, another concerned viewer added: ‘As funny as this is, isn’t this more dangerous, like now it doesn’t look as deep?’

In September 2024, West Sussex County Council (WSCC) urged members of the public not to emulate Mr Smith Hagget’s quirky pothole techniques for safety reasons, saying that people ‘risk their lives’ by going on highways.

A spokesperson for the council told MailOnline at the time: ‘We take the maintenance and repair of roads in West Sussex very seriously and we have increased our resources to tackle potholes and improve road conditions.’

The viral video comes as new research by car insurance company RAC found that just three per cent of England’s roads received any maintenance work between 2023 and 2024.

Moreover, three councils, including Blackpool Unitary Authority and Tameside Council, alongside the London Borough of Bexley, failed to fill in a single pothole or resurface any of their roads last year. 

Up to 36 per cent of England’s 152 councils were also found to have failed to undertake any preservation work in order to prevent potholes from forming. 

The RAC described their findings as indicative of local authorities being stuck ‘in a cycle of merely filling in potholes rather than looking after their roads properly’.  

Moreover, the process of repairing Britain’s potholes could even cost up to £17billion, recent figures by the Annual Local Authority Road Maintenance (Alarm) report, commissioned by the Apshalt Industry Alliance (AIA),have shown. 

Published in March, the annual report found that despite up to £20billion being spent on road repairs over the last decade, alongside one pothole being filled in on average every 18 seconds, more than half of the UK’s local roads are set to be in disrepair in just 15 years time.