Pothole bill could top £100m (From Bucks Free Press)

Pothole bill could top £100m

7:20am Saturday 29th January 2011 in News By Kieran Banks

Pothole bill could top £100m

MOTORISTS are being urged to report Potholes as it emerged the cost to fix the county’s roads could top £100 million.

The county’s deteriorating streets have caused frustrated motorists much pain in recent weeks with Transport for Buckinghamshire repairing more than 1,750 potholes since the turn of the year.

The council's budget for 'routine and reactive maintenance' this year is £5.6m – which pays for pot hole repairs, gully emptying and grass cuttings.

But It was estimated in the BCC three-day budget overview last week the cost to rid Buckinghamshire's roads of potholes is £120 million.

An additional £2m Local Government grant was used last summer.

Fuming motorists have been quick to report damage to their cars.

Last week Ray Richardson, 57, of Ash Road, Princes Risborough had three of his tyres damaged after hitting a pothole on Station Rd, Little Kimble.

The impact forced his car to hit the curb.

The lorry driver, who was driving his car at the time, said: “This particular pothole is an absolute nightmare- someone is going to get killed on it.”

And the week before, Booker resident David Knights, 42, had an expensive run in with a pothole last week, the impact costing him £500 to replace a bent front wheel and a flat tyre.

He said: “Generally, our roads are appalling. I travel all over the world and our roads are as bad if not worse then some of the poorest countries in the world.”

Asked if there what the top ten roads which had received most complaints Transport for Buckinghamshire spokesman Laura-Jo Stocks said: “No, there don’t appear to be any roads which have more damage than any other.

“It is difficult for us to establish if there are areas particularly plagued by potholes as we inspect any roads reported as having defects and very often find that more than one person has reported the same pothole.”

In reference to any particularly large holes reported, she added: “We haven't been informed of any large craters.”

Transport boss Cllr Val Letheren urged residents to “embrace the 'Big Society'” by taking “responsibility for reporting potholes on the roads that we travel on”.

She added: “Our guys are working their hardest to rectify any problems that the roads throw up.”

There are14 TfB road repair gangs fixing the county’s highways and regularly inspecting roads.

Potholes are rated as category one or two.

A category one pothole is classed as dangerous, over 12 inches or 300mm in any direction and two inches or 40mm deep with sharp edges and take priority over category two potholes.

All other potholes are classed as category two.

Temporary repairs may be carried out to dangerous potholes to make the road safe, however where possible permanent repairs are made.

This involves cutting out the area around the pothole to make a uniform shape with no jagged edges.

The hole is then cleaned out and coated with a layer of binder to act as an adhesive, is then filled with hot road surfacing material, then raked and compacted.

Once this material has cooled, the road can be reopened to traffic.

Potholes can be reported through the online report system at www.buckscc.gov.uk/transport.