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Workmen fill 18,000 potholes in Northamptonshire
Potholes filled
Workmen have fixed 18,500 potholes to clear a massive backlog created last winter and ensure new problems are repaired quickly.
The county council says new reports of problem potholes are dealt with speedily and that the decision to make permanent repairs instead of temporary fixes is also reaping rewards.
A further £30m is set to be invested in road repairs by the county council this year.
A county council spokesman said: “Increased traffic, recent severe winters and a lack of investment over the past 20 years has had a heavy impact on the county’s roads.
“To do all the necessary work to bring all the roads up to a good standard would cost many millions of pounds – hence the current budget proposal for £30m of capital expenditure.
“We’re confident that the new highways maintenance initiative has made significant progress in improving the integrity of those highways which received significant repairs over the summer months and that this will go a long way to ensuring that they bear up to the wintery conditions.”
Reports of potholes flood into the county council’s Street Doctor facility daily with more than 1,300 reported between October and the end of the year, but workmen are now able to deal with the immediate problems rather than those not repaired since last winter.
Before councillors relaxed the deadline for urgent repairs from 24 hours to five days in April, 60 per cent of repairs were temporary.
Now 93 per cent of repairs are permanent or semi-permanent.
The council used to repair all potholes within a month, but workers now have six months to repair less serious potholes.
Resurfacing has gone up by 55 per cent over the past year and n the equivalent of 30 football pitches of road have had some resurfacing.
Workmen have also resurfaced the equivalent of 10 football pitches of footpaths.
But drivers say the roads are still breaking up and fear they will not have survived the harsh winter.
Paul Gillett, general manager of Gibsons Haulage in Welling-borough, said: “If it works it’s fine, but I’m sure they have said this before.
They spent two days doing Sidegate Lane near Wellingborough.
It was alright for a few weeks but I went down there a few days ago and it’s as bad as it was.”
Peter Church, of Royal Blue Transport, said potholes had broken his wife’s car’s coil springs on two occasions.
Mr Church said: “They have repaired up to our yard, but whether it will hold I don’t know.”
Highway faults can be reported to the county council Street Doctor service on 0845 6011113 or online at www.northamptonshire.gov.uk.
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Sunday 27 May 2012
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Comments
There are 4 comments to this article
Page 1 of 1
damacles
Tuesday, January 18, 2011 at 08:04 PM18,000 pot holes filled in, it would be nice to know which streets were done just so that I can say I've driven on a pot hole free road. There is still at least 50,000 pot holes to be filled in in Wellingborough alone, Henshaw Road hasn't just got pot holes it looks more like it has been ploughed. Rather than keep filling in holes surely in the long run it has got to be cheaper to just dig up the whole road and start again.
suricate
Sunday, January 16, 2011 at 09:33 AMFunny though how development continues with the money to build new roads and infrastructure yet the Council can only fill in the odd pothole. The roads need resurfacing not patching up, it is not cost effective. Perhaps the great swaithes of cash waved about by the huge developers could be earmarked to re-instate our crumbling road systems before we carry on new developments ?.
Ray Rodden
Saturday, January 15, 2011 at 01:01 PM1969 - the Beatles may have sang - "I read the news today oh, boy Four thousand holes in Corby, Northamptonshire And though the holes were rather small They had to count them all - now they know how many holes it takes to fill the Albert Hall". Guess even holes suffer from inflation - now we have 18,000. Oh well, just another 'day in the life' of county residents
Reginald Molehusband
Saturday, January 15, 2011 at 10:44 AMWhat utter drivel emanating yet again from the cabinet office of the incompetent Heather Smith. There are numerrous roads around here that are full of potholes for the last two years: the upper end of The Grove in Moulton, the Holcot to Hannington road has probably three dozen massive holes in it since 2009(which incidentally was closed for 6 months in 2006 to be completely rebuilt - why has the council not taken action against the original contractor?), Newland Road in Walgrave is virtually impassable, the list is endless. Some of the patches I could have made a better job of it with a knife and fork!
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