Extra cash to fix Nottinghamshire’s problem with potholes

pothole
One of Nottinghamshire's potholed roads.

Extra money is being given by the Government to fix Nottinghamshire’s growing problem with potholes.

Around £840,000 had been promised in the summer to repair tens of thousands of holes in desperate need of filling by Nottinghamshire County Council.

This has now risen to to £1,174,000, enough, the authority says, to in effect fix more than 22,000 pot holes – 40 per cent more than it originally planned.

Council leader Alan Rhodes said: “We welcome this as it comes against a backdrop of more than £212 million savings that we as an authority have had to make since 2010 as a result of Government funding cuts.

“Nottinghamshire looks after a network of around 2,600 miles of road and spends more than £2.8 million a year on carriageway repairs such as patching and filling in potholes.”

Last year the county council launched a new three-pronged approach to potholes and patching, which has enabled it to increase dramatically the number of potholes it fixes.

This includes a method of mending potholes in a ‘right, first time’ strategy on time and quickly, with the use of ‘find and fix’ teams.

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Nottinghamshire’s roads have thousands of problem pot holes.

Councillor Kevin Greaves, chairman of the transport and highways committee at the council said: “Our improved methods are dramatically reducing the time taken to repair most potholes, create a much more responsive service for residents and also increase the longevity of repair.

“Our new approach to filling potholes and our ‘find and fix’ teams, means that we are filling more of the most urgent potholes – usually within one working day of them being found or reported.

“There are still locations where it is more appropriate to use conventional repair methods but, overall, the two new methods mean many more potholes are being repaired in a cost-effective way, using an advanced material which is particularly effective in wet weather.”

Most road surfaces are made of macadam – a mix of stones bound together with bitumen and aggregate.

Macadam is a flexible material but bitumen binder becomes brittle as it ages, and cracks can open in the surface of the material after many years.

Water can get into these cracks and freeze, widening the crack. This freeze-thaw effect can deteriorate the road surface and lead to potholes forming.

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