Member Article

Road repair experts call to tackle “mess”

Road preservation experts Velocity have described Britain’s local roads as “a mess” in the wake of alarming new figures that reveal the country now has a pothole for every mile of road.

Part of the Reece Group of Companies, Velocity is calling on more local authorities to take preventative action to tackle the growing pothole backlog.

Velocity repaired 376,000 potholes across the UK so far this year – a 46 per cent increase on last year - including Durham, North Somerset, Cheshire, Kent, Essex, Herefordshire, Hampshire, South Gloucestershire and Hertfordshire.

Now, in the wake of the shocking new figures about the state of the UK’s roads, the industry leaders are appealing to more local authorities to take action to preserve their local road network.

Official data from councils across the UK has revealed a 79 per cent increase in compensation claims in the past financial year from motorists as a result of pothole damage.

Describing the situation as a “pothole epidemic”, breakdown service Britannia Rescue said local authorities had received 32,600 claims in the past financial year, paying out £2.5m in compensation to motorists.

Phill Lewis, sales manager of Sunderland-based Velocity, responded: “We cannot escape from the stark reality that our road network is in its worst state in living memory.

“While there is no doubt that our motorways must be preserved, the desperate need for action on our rural and local network seems to be have been conveniently forgotten.

“Quite simply, our local roads are a mess. And our minor roads will continue to suffer as the budgetary cuts bite ever harder.

“The nation’s road users are the biggest losers, of course, but I have every sympathy with the local authorities who must deal with the double-edged sword of ever-increasing road defects and ever-decreasing budgets.

“There is now an urgent need not only to get to grips with the existing pothole backlog but to take preventative measures to ensure tomorrow’s potential potholes don’t form.”

Britannia claimed that short-term fixes were often chosen over longer term solutions, with 23 per cent of councils reportedly admitting they usually temporarily fix potholes rather than resurface the area.

They also claimed that the average cost of repairing a pothole was around £50, which they said councils could have been used to repair more than 50,000 potholes.

But Mr Lewis responded by saying: “Although occasionally unavoidable, temporary fixes are clearly not the way forward.

“Unfortunately, conventional methods for fixing potholes and other road defects are often take too long and cost too much.”

Velocity’s expertise has been utilised by highways authorities in Kent, Cheshire and Essex over the past 12 months, with their specialist machines and highly-skilled three-man crews making a huge impact on the condition of the highways network in all three counties.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Martin Walker .