City hopes to fill in ‘ pothole epidemic’
CITY council bosses are to bid for a share of millions of pounds of Government funding aimed at repairing the nation’s roads.
One Wearside firm is set to cash in on the war on Britain’s potholes.
Councils are being invited to bid for a share of the £ 168million Pothole Fund to repair local roads.
Successful local authorities will sign a Pothole Pledge as a condition of the funding, setting out the number of potholes they will have repaired by March 2015.
City council leader Coun Paul Watson, said: “The city council has received bid guidance and is studying the requirements. We expect to bid in due course.”
Sunderland- based road repair company Velocity is already working with Redcar and Cleveland Council and is in talks with others.
Managing director Dominic Gardner is particular keen to work with Sunderland. He said: “As a proud Wearside business, speaking to Sunderland City Council about how we can help tackle the city’s road preservation challenges, is top of our priority list.
“The UK has a pothole epidemic and many local authorities are simply overwhelmed by the back- log of defects. It is a rising crisis that calls not just for more money – which is certainly needed – but for new thinking too.
“As the adage goes, do what you’ve always done and you’ll get what you’ve always got.”
Rather than conventional repair gangs, Velocity uses hi- tech patching machines, which they claim can carry out repairs that are both faster and more cost- effective than traditional methods.
In 2013, the company repaired more than a quarter of a million of potholes across the UK.