15,040 potholes filled in Cambridgeshire since start of the year

County council says record number have been repaired after Beast from the East affected roads

A record number of potholes have now been filled across Cambridgeshire, according to the county council.

Shire Hall said 15,040 potholes had been filled since the start of the year – many caused by the cold snap brought by the Beast from the East.

The weather brought a huge surge in the number of damaged roads being reported online to Cambridgeshire County Council’s highways team.

The council said members of the public used the online system to report 8,477 potholes since January 1 – 50 per cent more than were reported in the whole of 2017.

In addition, Cambridgeshire’s highways inspectors have been out on the roads to identify more potholes as part of a regular maintenance programme.

It means, the council said, its 11 teams have already fixed 15,040 potholes across the county – it peaked at more than 1,300 potholes being filled each week.

The county’s chairman of the highways and community infrastructure committee, Cllr Mathew Shuter, said: “It has been a challenging time for our crews, especially with the severe weather conditions. We hope the weather is now going to improve and the teams are working flat out to deal with the number of potholes that have been reported to us.

“Our aim is always to keep our roads safe and we will look at every pothole that is reported to us and deal with it as quickly as possible.

“I would like to thank the people of Cambridgeshire for their patience and ask them to continue using our online reporting tool.”

As well as 11 crews on the ground, the council also uses a dragon patcher to help deal with the tide of pothole reports and two more of these machines have been ordered to help put the teams “ahead of the game”.

The council explained that when potholes are reported, each one is inspected, risk assessed and marked with paint to prioritise repairs for areas most in need. Some potholes are fixed immediately, if they are a considered a safety risk, while others will be repaired as part of programmed maintenance work.

Depending on the size and location and any safety risk, the council said it will “try to deal with potholes between five days and 12 weeks after they are reported but is usually deal much quicker”.

This year, along with additional government funding to fix potholes, the county council has a £6.3million fund to spend on repairing them.

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