Extra £2m Boosts Drive To Fix County's Potholes
Derbyshire County Council has welcomed a £2m plus Government cash injection in its drive to fix the county’s potholes.
Transport Secretary Chris Grayling has today (Monday 26 March) announced that England-wide authorities are to receive a share of £100m to help repair potholes and protect roads from future severe weather.
Derbyshire County Council is to get £2,035,992. This will bring the total spend on fixing Derbyshire’s potholes between now and March 2019 to more than £6m – three times the amount spent during the previous 12 months.
In December 2017 the number of potholes listed for repair had fallen to 120 but by the beginning of March the number had risen to over 3,000. This increase is due to some of the worst winter weather for a decade as more are found during inspections and are reported by the public.
In response the authority announced it was spending £4m on repairing potholes – double compared to the previous year.
The council has already set on nine extra gangs of roadworkers to support the 12 usual teams to fix potholes and carry out other road repairs such as wider areas of patching.
This additional £2m will enable more of this work to be done and more quickly.
Councillor Simon Spencer, Derbyshire County Council Cabinet Member for Highways, Transport and Infrastructure, said: “We had made giant strides to decrease the backlog of potholes on the 3,500 miles of road that we look after reducing numbers by 80% during 2017.
“However, over the last few weeks we’ve experienced the worst sustained period of winter weather for the past 10 years. The constant freezing and thawing, huge amounts of rainfall and blankets of heavy snow have caused our roads to crack which has resulted in a significant rise in the number of potholes and carriageway deterioration.”
Councillor Spencer added: “We welcome this extra Government cash on top of the additional funding we have already committed and we will continue to step up our inspections and target our resources where they are most needed. I’d also encourage the public to report potholes so we can feed this into our extra gangs for them to carry out repairs.”
In addition to the council’s pothole budget it is already spending nearly £16m patching, surface dressing and resurfacing the county’s roads and fixing drains and gullies.
And it is investing an extra £6m on road maintenance to keep on top of highway defects as part of the council’s pledge to keep roads safe and reliable for road users.
Potholes can be reported at www.derbyshire.gov.uk/reportit
Once reported potholes – which in line with national guidance must be at least 40mm deep on the road or 20mm on a footpath – are prioritised for repair depending on the risk they pose to road and footpath users.
Factors that determine how quickly a pothole is fixed include location, depth, size and the speed limit of the road. Potholes categorised in most urgent need of repair will be filled within a maximum of 32 hours – usually quicker. Less urgent ones are fixed between five and 28 days after being reported.
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