Drones to fly on new mission... looking for potholes

DRONES are to become the new weapon in the battle against motorists’ greatest foe – potholes.

The automated devices will be flown over highways to spot holes in their surfaces as part of a £15million Government scheme to improve the nation’s roads.

There are also plans to use 3D printers to mend cracks – although it is not know how this would work.

The pioneering solution was recommended to town halls covering cities and the countryside yesterday in proposals laid out by the Department for Transport.

Other recommendations included using video technology to inspect the quality of roadworks and making the shape of pothole repairs circular rather than square, to avoid weak points at the corners.

But motoring groups were sceptical of the proposals, with the amount of money behind them dwarfed by the £2.5billion earmarked by Chancellor Rishi Sunak last year for tackling potholes. The total bill for repairing England’s roads is estimated to be £10.4billion, a recent report found. Some rural roads have not been fixed for 100 years.

Edmund King, president of the AA, said: ‘Extra funding and better use of technology to help tackle potholes, particularly on nonmain roads that tend to wait longer for repair, is welcome.

‘However, improved pothole repairs will depend on council priorities and schedules.

Councils often prefer to wait until a road has reached a point where a large number of defects makes it cost-effective to repair.’

The drone proposals were put forward by the Digital Intelligence Brokerage (DIB), an agency set up with Government support to look at the pothole problem. It drew up its solutions in a pilot project for Wiltshire Council, but said they could be adopted by town halls across Britain.

Potholes and blemishes in roads contributed to 671 injuries and ten deaths in 2019, the latest year for which figures are available.