Council stoked to be first in UK to receive JCB’s new revolutionary pothole machine
STOKE-ON-TRENT City Council has become the first authority in the UK to invest in JCB’s machine which repairs potholes four times quicker than standard methods.
Councillor Daniel Jellyman, cabinet member for regeneration, infrastructure and heritage at the city council, said he was very impressed with the trials which took place last year, and as a result the PotholePro was now being deployed on the city’s roads.
He said: “We’re investing £25 million – one of the biggest ever sustained investments in the city’s highways, with potholes filled and pavements and roads resurfaced on a daily basis.
“This machine is another weapon in our armoury as we make sure our road network is maintained to a high standard for residents, businesses and visitors, which is vital to rebuilding our economy in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.
“At a time when every penny counts for local authorities, we’re delighted to have been at the forefront of developing and trialling this new machine. We can’t wait to get our hands on it and put it to work on the city’s roads.”
JCB launched the PotholePro - a machine that can repair a pothole in less than eight minutes and at half the cost of current solutions earlier this year.
The machine will be supplied in the next few weeks by JCB dealer Gunn JCB. Between now and the end of June, a fleet of PotholePros are being demonstrated to potential customers across the whole of the UK and Ireland.
The machine’s development has been led personally by JCB Chairman Lord Bamford. He said: “Potholes really are the scourge of our nation. Our country is quite rightly fixated on this dreadful problem and, as a British manufacturer, I am fixated on finding a solution. We simply cannot allow our road network to continue to be blighted by potholes. JCB’s solution is simple and cost effective and fixes potholes permanently, first time.”
The launch of the PotholePro follows a vow from Chancellor Rishi Sunak last November to invest £1.6bn to fix potholes in Britain and ‘level-up’ uneven roads. Shock figures from the AA reveal more than £11bn-worth of potholes need repairing across the UK.
The PotholePro allows the contractor or local authority to cut the road defect, crop the edges and clean the hole with one machine – mechanising jobs traditionally done by pothole gangs equipped with jack hammers, floor saws and brooms. Mechanisation halves the cost of pothole repair – and allows four times as many holes to be repaired per day.
JCB’s PotholePro is equipped with a 600mm wide planer and integrated dust suppression system, enabling the operator to plane a full carriageway from the kerb, without repositioning.