6, POTHOLES SET FOR REPAIR IN COUNCIL BLITZ
Six-month-long campaign on road defects
THOUSANDS of potholes on city roads are set to be repaired in six months – under a new council blitz.
Leaders at Stoke-on-trent City Council admit roads in the Potteries have been neglected and many ‘aren’t drivable’, but insist Government funding cuts are to blame.
The authority has received around 6,000 complaints about the state of Stoke-on-trent’s roads over the last 12 months. Now it has set its sights on repairing the exact same number – in half the time.
It comes after the council has had to pay £371,914 in compensation to 978 drivers due to pothole damage to vehicles since 2020, with 403 successful claims last year alone.
Council leaders say this summer’s campaign will be followed by a more ‘proactive’ approach in future that will prevent things getting this bad again. This year the Government announced Stoke-on-trent would receive £19.1 million a year of re-allocated HS2 funding, over seven years from 2025, with pothole repairs among the areas where the money can be spent.
Cabinet member Amjid Wazir said although this new funding would not be available until next April, the council would start its pothole crackdown now.
He said: “We have seen that there are big demands from the residents and road users for something to be done. We can see the condition of the roads. Some aren’t drivable any more.
“So we decided put everything else aside and give the roads the priority. Our target is 6,000 repairs of road defects in six months. We will try to do all the defects wherever they are, and we encourage our residents to report them.”
Councillor Wazir said the problems with the city’s roads ‘started 12 years ago, not one year ago’.
He added: “Our budget has been cut by more than £80 million in the last five years or so. But after our administration took over last year we have been prioritising what our residents want, and we will try our best to deliver. We will be proactive once the six months after over. So we should never get to this stage again.”
Council officials gathered in Dividy Road, Bentilee on Tuesday to officially launch the DRIVE campaign – which stands for deliver, restore, invest, versatile and effective. They watched a highways team carry out repairs to potholes in the road using machines such as the JCB Pothole Pro.
The team included James Harper, who has more than 14,000 followers on his ‘Highway Harper’ Instagram account, which documents the job of maintaining Stoke-on-trent’s roads.
He says having a machine like the Pothole Pro, which can cut, crop and clean potholes, means more repairs can be carried out. He said: “This has repaired 7,224 potholes last year with just four operatives, which was a record amount of defects taken off the network, so it’s phenomenal for us. “But this is just a small proportion of the work that’s going on.
“There will be hand crews out there doing little potholes. Our lads are dedicated and will work in all sorts of weather to bring the network up to that safety standard.”
Street shut as potholes filled and trees chopped down - page 19