New machines are out on county’s roads filling potholes

Two Velocity road patching machines are being deployed across West Sussex to proactively seek and fill potholes.

The initiative is part of a two-pronged ‘attack’ on potholes, with the innovative Velocity system used in addition to the traditional inspection/ repair regime.

The road patchers are used to fill potholes sizeable enough to need filling under safety criteria but also to repair defects likely to further deteriorate and reach that level in the near future.

When selecting routes to attend, the teams focus on those with the highest, historic pothole numbers, to try to optimise value for money and results.

In the first four weeks of 2022/23, the two machines completed more tahn 1,100 repairs and treated approximately 3,000sqm of the highway network.

Joy Dennis, West Sussex County Council’s cabinet member for highways and transport, said: “We know how important the condition of our roads is to residents and are proactively tackling the issue of potholes.

"The deployment of two Velocity machines follows last year’s successful trial , when we were impressed with the speed and quality of the patching system and the audited results post-repair.

“Fixing potholes is really important, but we also have our ongoing £32million programme of investment in highways and transport , which includes an unprecedented level of investment in road and footway repairs in recent years.

"Within the programme are a significant number of road resurfacing schemes. Resurfacing a road produces a smoother surface, reducing road noise and increasing resilience to potholes – a longer-term solution to pothole issues compared to small-scale repairs.”

Velocity uses high-velocity air to remove all dust and debris and open-up cracks at the bottom of the pothole to ensure a solid, stable repair A cold bitumen emulsion is forced into every crack and crevice under pressure, sealing it and making it water-tight. The operator switches on the aggregate mix, which is fired at high velocity through a nozzle, evenly coating the granules with bitumen emulsion and building up the waterproof seal, with no joints. If required, the aggregate mix is compacted with a ‘wacker plate’.