Councillor claims Cambridgeshire pothole repaired 12 times

A councillor says the approach to fixing potholes in Cambridgeshire needs to change as he’s aware of a pothole being repaired 12 times over the past five years.

Cllr Brian Milnes (Lib Dem, Sawston) said the “cheap and cheerful” repairs for some potholes only last a few months before they need to be fixed again.

Cambridgeshire County Council officers said they hope to use some of the £40m extra highways investment planned by the authority to do more preventative works to prevent the “vicious cycle” of repairs.

Cllr Milnes told a meeting of the highways and transport committee on Tuesday (5 March) that he knew of a pothole that had been repeatedly fixed by the county council 12 times in the last five years.

He said “We are making use of [the] dragon patcher because it is very cost effective. It is cheap, but it is cheap and cheerful.

“The material that the dragon patch puts in its potholes is quickly removed, sadly often into drainage gullies adjacent to where the work has been done, and then we have to go back and do it again.”

Cllr Milnes said the previous day he had received his 221st email about potholes on Granhams Road in Great Shelford, which have been repaired “three times in the last year”.

He said: “That Granhams Road example is pertinent because it just lasts three or four months maximum before potholes reappear.

“My question is, how do we make value judgments on what techniques we use? Because it does not seem that it is right, so we need to do something different.”

Committee chair Cllr Alex Beckett (Lib Dem, Queen Ediths) said this was an issue he felt passionate about.

He said it would help if the council collected extra information about how many times the same site was repaired in order to make a value judgement on the best approach.

Councillor Alan Sharp (Con, Woodditton) said people were “fed up seeing their money going into the hole”. He said he knew it would make people happy if the council fixed a pothole once and did it well.

Cllr Neil Shailer (Lab, Romsey) said there was a difference between the temporary and permanent repairs.

He said: “We have to recognise we cannot get a pothole without a pre-existing fault. We have had decades of neglect and we are reaping the negative results of that.”

Cllr Shailer said there were also problems with quickly ramping up the repair work, as he said some areas were seeing an “enormous amount of roadworks” by utility companies, and they needed to keep the road network running.

Frank Jordan, executive director for place and sustainability, added that in addition to the investment in the roads, he said the council was also “putting quite a lot of resource and energy” into changing the highways service to make sure it works effectively.