British rocker Rod Stewart took it upon himself to fill in potholes on a road near his home and earned a mild rebuke from the authority responsible for maintaining the routes in the process.
In videos the 77-year-old musician shared on social media, he said he was fed up with the dire state of the road in Harlow, Essex, and that he “and the boys thought we would come and do it ourselves.”
“People are bashing their cars up. The other day, there was an ambulance with a burst tire,” he explained in the clip, which showed him shoveling gravel. “My Ferrari can’t go through here at all.”
Locals appeared to be happy with the singer’s unexpected side gig:
But Essex Highways took a dimmer view.
“While we would like to prioritize repairs to every road, the scale of our network — over 5,000 miles — means this is impossible and we have to focus on repairing defects likely to be most detrimental to the safety of our road users, ” a spokesperson told HuffPost.
“While we appreciate Sir Rod’s commitment and community spirit, we discourage anyone from carrying out work on the roads themselves,” the spokesperson added. “Without proper traffic management and other specific safety measures, residents are putting themselves and others at risk.”
Nevertheless, Stewart’s moonlighting went viral with fans reworking his lyrics: