It may sound like a potty idea - but one councillor's come up with a plan to sort out all the holes in our roads!

Cllr Paul Clokie, Ashford Borough Council leader, is calling for a bizarre scheme to be introduced.....where people can buy potholes!

For a princely sum of £45 people would be able to dig deep to buy the holes in the ground - and then fit a memorial tribute!

The idea has taken off in the German village of Niederzimmern near Leipzig, where villagers can buy a pot hole for 50 euros.

They are then filled with asphalt and a metal plaque with the owner's name or a tribute to a loved one. So far only 52 of the 1,050 residents have dug deep to pay for their holes.

During a discussion about pot holes at Ashford's Joint Transport Board meeting on Tuesday Cllr Clokie, tory councillor for Tenterden, said: "In Germany they have solved this problem because they've been selling potholes as places to remember loved ones. You buy a pothole and then it is filled in along with a marker. I think it's something Kent County Council should look at."

Speaking after the meeting he said: "I think the scheme needs to be examined more closely.

"You pay 50 euros so the pothole is yours and when they come to fix it you can have a plaque put on top of it.

"It could say 'In memory of Sherry my dog' or something like that.

Truck driver Barry Jupp, 57, from Woodchurch Road, Shadoxhurst, said: "Even on a good day this idea is stupid. If you buy a pothole for £50 and someone comes to fix it, what happens if it opens up again. Do you have to pay another £50?

"There's no way it would work. In my road there are more than a dozen potholes, it's more like a track. It's going to need a big strip pulled up to fix it but if someone wants to pay £50 to have an individual hole fixed that's up to them."

Kent Highways said they have fixed 31,000 pot holes this year. This time last year they had only fixed 9,000.