We're fixing potholes across Central Bedfordshire
Thursday, 9 February 2023
We're continuing to fix potholes in the roads as the cold, icy weather plays havoc with road surfaces.
Freezing conditions before Christmas and into the New Year, combined with periods of prolonged rain, have seen roads suffer in all parts of the UK, with potholes and defects appearing in carriageways.
In Central Bedfordshire, since the start of April 2022, we've repaired around 2,000 potholes and are working hard to maintain over 800 miles of roads. In addition to the funding we allocate, £2.5 million from the Department for Transport’s Pothole Fund is helping with this work.
To step up work on repairing the potholes, cutting-edge technology will also be deployed in the form of 4 Jetpatcher machines. This road repair system leads to safe repairs, reduces costs and takes only half the time to fix potholes when compared to traditional repair methods. This will enable us to reduce the pothole backlog and minimise disruption for road users and residents during the work.
Spotted a pothole?
In an emergency, dangerous potholes or other safety-related issues can be reported to our highways 24 hour emergency team on 0300 300 8049.
Councillor Ian Dalgarno, our Executive Member for Community Services, said:
Winter weather always takes its toll on highways, however, the extreme conditions this winter have led to an increase in the number of reported potholes in Central Bedfordshire and across the UK.
Our Highways Team is working hard to keep the network safe and is focussing more resources into carrying out urgent repairs. Where a defect is deemed unsafe, due to the size or the location on the carriageway, and poses a serious risk to the public, we carry out repairs as quickly as possible and with our new Jetpatchers on the go, together with other traditional methods, we can fix the potholes faster and more cost-effectively than before.
I know residents and road users are being affected by the increased number of potholes and I would like to ask them to bear with us while we deal with required repairs, as quickly as we can, prioritising those that are most important. I thank residents for reporting potholes to us and I ask that they continue to do so through Fix My Street.
We are working hard to provide quality highways maintenance work for the benefit of our residents and road users.
We're also investing £20 million in the highways network in the 2022/23 financial year and have over 200 improvement schemes in our highways annual plan for this same period, of which 80% have already been completed.