Chesham is one of the first towns in Bucks to benefit from a major £4.6 million pothole repair scheme across the county’s crumbling roads.

The annual plane and patch scheme – which aims to tackle larger areas of potholes – started on Monday, and the Greenway Parade in Chesham is one of the first roads to be tackled.

Cabinet member for transport at Bucks County Council (BCC), Mark Shaw, said the scheme is a “great opportunity” to get rid of “pothole farms” and focus on roads that “cause the most concern for members of the public”.

Speaking during a meeting of BCC’s cabinet on Monday (March 4), Cllr Shaw said: “We will be spending £4.6 million this year on this scheme. That’s on top of the road resurfacing monies we have.

“We are starting off, I have to say, in my division, in Chesham, the Greenway Parade. After looking at it with my colleague from the district council yesterday, it mightily needs doing.

“We are out there, we are doing the work, and we are getting the potholes filled.”

Leader of the council, Martin Tett, said potholes are the main reason residents complain to BCC, adding he “understands” why people get irritated over the issue.

However, he said the repair scheme will be “weather dependent” – as effective repairs cannot be carried out on wet roads.

Cllr Tett said: “Potholes are the biggest complaint, just ahead of fly tipping, and I understand why people get irritated when they see these collections of potholes scattered around.

“Sometimes it looks like we fill one and forget all of the others. The advantage of plane and patch is you take of that top layer, you plane it off, then fill it in with tarmac effectively, which means you can cover an entire area rather than filling in individual potholes.

“We had to wait until the weather improves before we could do this. There is no way you could put this down on a wet surface and expect it to last.

“Weather dependant, we should be able to roll out quite a substantial programme over the next few months.”