Potholes ‘biggest enemy for road users’

12.56 | 7 March 2019 | | 3 comments

The Government has unveiled plans to keep roads ‘pothole-free for longer’ – including imposing higher standards on companies that carry out road repairs.

The plans, put out for consultation by the DfT on 6 March, would increase the guarantee on roadworks – so that if a pothole forms within five years, the company in question must return to bring the road surface back to its normal condition.

A new asphalt standard would also be introduced, allowing for the use of ‘new innovative surfacing’ such as asphalt with a high bitumen content.

Chris Grayling, transport secretary, said: “Potholes are the biggest enemy for road users and this Government is looking at all options to keep our roads in the best condition.

“Road surfaces can be made worse by utility companies, so imposing higher standards on repairs will help keep roads pothole-free for longer.”

The consultation, which will last for eight weeks, follows a number of other Government interventions designed to help improve road surfaces.

Last month, the DfT announced real-world tests of new road surfaces and technologies in eight areas, to see which emerging innovations provide long-term solutions to improve journeys.

The £22.9m ‘Live Labs’ projects will be delivered by councils – including Kent, Staffordshire, Reading, Suffolk and Solihull and Birmingham – and if successful, could be adopted by other authorities.

The schemes include expanding the testing of ‘plastic roads’ in Cumbria, using kinetic energy from Buckinghamshire roads to power lighting – and using geothermal energy to keep car parks and bus stations in Central Bedfordshire from freezing over.


 

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    If potholes are such a great danger to road users then why does poor road maintenance not appear more frequently on police Stats incident forms. Do the police turn a blind eye or are poorly maintained roads not considered a casusation?


    R.Craven
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    Sheffield in South Yorkshire have had the roads resurfaced in recent years. After a few years the re surfacing has deteriorated rapidly and is now in a worse condition than it was before. i.e. the surfaces are cracked and crazed and subsiding in places.
    I believe this resurfacing was paid for by grant, which I believe has been poorly spent.


    Carl Bradwell, Sheffield
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    In my local area Council workers [ contractors] are merely dumping an amount of tarmac into or onto holes or depressions and padding them down with the back of a shovel then having done their work they drive off. Nice one.

    A week later the depression or hole appears again but this time with the spread of more dangerous material that has been pushed out of it and spread over a larger area.


    R.Craven
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