Major push on pothole repairs
Written by Shaun Moore on May 12, 2010
Gloucestershire County Council has repaired more potholes in the past four months than in the whole of last year. 
Since January 25th, 38,918 potholes have been repaired in the county. In 2009 38,000 potholes were repaired in the entire year, with 25,000 repaired the year before.
The prolonged freezing weather this winter caused severe damage on our roads and thousands of potholes formed all across the county.
Since the end of January when the council launched Operation Road Rescue, 70 teams from Gloucestershire Highways have been out repairing the damage.
But despite the fact that around 500 potholes are being fixed every day, there’s still a lot more to be done to bring our roads back up to standard.
Teams are targeting the worst damage first because we have to prioritise what we’re doing to ensure we fix the potholes that are the most dangerous.
Resurfacing schemes are also taking place with the full programme of planned work due to be finalised soon.
Cllr Stan Waddington, cabinet member for environment and roads, said: “The fact that we have already repaired more potholes in the past 15 weeks than in all of 2009 is shocking, but I am pleased to see how much progress we’re actually making.
“Our teams have made an excellent start on repairing our winter-damaged roads and to help them we have diverted 30% more gangs into dealing with the repairs.
“We’ve had a lot of feedback from the public and while people are happy with what we’re doing some are still confused about the way we’re working.
“We understand people’s frustration when they see some potholes being filled and not others in the same street.
“Unfortunately, due to the sheer volume of potholes on our roads at the moment we have to target the most serious ones – the ones that will cause the most damage to vehicles – before we tackle the others.
“If a gang was to concentrate on repairing a whole street at a time, then there would be serious potholes left on the roads that we would not be able to get to as quickly.
“I appreciate that this is annoying, but I would like to reassure people that we will repair the less serious potholes as soon as we can, but our priority has to be public safety.”
