Driven potty by potholes: Councillor calls for change to temporary repair approach in Cambridgeshire

A councillor has called for a change in approach to fixing potholes in Cambridgeshire, after claiming one pothole had been repaired 12 times in five years

Cllr Brian Milnes (Lib Dem, Sawston and Shelford) said some repairs only last a few months.

He told a highways and transport committee on March 5: “We are making use of a Dragon Patcher, because it is very cost effective. It is cheap, but it is cheap and cheerful.”

He said he had received 221 emails about a pothole in Granhams Road in Great Shelford, which had been repaired three times in a year.

And he knew of another pothole that had been “returned to 12 times in the last five years”, which he described as “inappropriate use of resources”.

“The material that the Dragon Patcher 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,” he said.

Chair Cllr Alex Beckett (Lib Dem, Queen Edith’s) said data on how often highways teams go back to sites would be useful.

A council officer explained that the council is hoping to use some of the additional £40million funding it is putting towards roads maintenance in 2024-26 to invest in preventative treatments on roads, to avoid the “vicious circle” of reactive repairs.

And an officer said there was a lot of work going into examining the systems, culture and resource allocation in the highways team to improve the service.

Cllr Alan Sharp (Con, Woodditton) said people were “fed up seeing their money going into the hole”. He said people would be 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 repairs put in place by the authority and the permanent repairs, and the wet weather had meant more temporary repairs that ideal.

He added: “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 rewards of that.”

Cllr Shailer noted there were “problems” with ramping up repair work while keeping the road network running amid the “enormous amount of roadworks due to utilities and other entities outside our control”.

The council has £8.329million to spend in 2024-25 and the same in 2025-26 from the Department for Transport’s pothole action fund.

Meanwhile, residents in Rayson Way in Cambridge have been complaining about a huge pothole that one measured as being 2m long, 1m wide and 135mm deep.

Writing on the Barnwell CB5 Babble Facebook group earlier this month, the resident wrote: “This is getting seriously dangerous.”

And he noted how potholes filled in Ditton Lane and Maids Causeway were becoming craters again within days of being filled, while a “long, wide deep trench” had developed on the Victoria Avenue side of the Four Lamps roundabout.

After the Cambridge Independent asked the county council about repairs in Rayson Way, a spokesperson said it would be inspected again by highways officers today (15 March). That follows the repair of eight potholes in the road on 29 February.

The spokesperson added: “We fixed more than 45,000 potholes last year and we always aim to repair potholes with a permanent fix first time, however, in the winter this can be difficult due to the weather and numbers of potholes. At this time of year, we sometimes make temporary fixes to keep people safe, to keep up with the numbers and because road conditions are too wet for permanent repairs. Permanent fixes will then be programmed in and delivered when the weather allows.”

Additional reporting: Hannah Brown, Local Democracy Reporter