Potholes Overview
We prioritise all potholes so that the most dangerous ones are repaired either the next day or within 7 days.
The vast majority are given to specialist teams and will be repaired depending on location and road use, usually within 90 days however this may be extended depending on resources.
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If you would like to alert us to a pothole, please:
Pothole repair methods
We use numerous approaches to repair in order to ensure cost effectiveness, these include; several planer patching teams for larger natured repairs, several traditional ‘cut and break’ crews and two-man reactive teams for smaller natured repairs, an in-situ tarmac manufacturing team and four velocity patching machines are also deployed during the appropriate treatment season.
Road master (velocity patching)
During the summer road-repair season and in milder conditions we endeavour to repair as many defects in one location as possible. The county council has access to four road master machines and these are deployed to tackle carriageways where several road defects may be present within a given area.
Road master machines help to speed up the repair of localised road surface defects as they allow operatives to fill and seal potholes remotely without refilling throughout the day.
The machines create no waste meaning they are more environmentally friendly than traditional filling methods.
For more information on the road master machinery and a demonstration of them in operation please see the following video:
Cut and break
This involves cutting around the pothole and breaking away the fretted material, then refilling with tarmac. A bitumen over-banding may be used to help protect the joint from ingress of water and risk of associated damage. However, this is not the case in all types of repair such as more modern velocity-patcher techniques, or where the repair is a temporary make-safe repair.
Other repairs may include planer patching, hot spot patching and pre-patching for preventative maintenance treatments.
Preventative maintenance treatments
There are various surface treatment designs that form part of our preventative maintenance programme and the following descriptions explain the processes involved in each type. For further detail on how schemes are identified and prioritised please see the asset investment page.
Surface dressing
Surface dressing involves the process of applying a bituminous binder topped with aggregate chippings. This effectively seals the road from the ingress of water and restores the necessary skid resistance to the surface course.
Inevitably, despite concerted sweeping operations, the process does lead to loose chippings immediately after the application, which is why 10 mph notices are erected throughout sites.
For more information on this road treatment, please visit our road surface treatments page.
Structural maintenance treatments
These schemes involve the removal and replacement of the old material and have varying costs per square metre depending on the depth and length of surfacing needing to be removed and replaced.
As these works are extensive, each one requires a very significant proportion of investment from the highway maintenance budget.
For further detail on how schemes are identified and prioritised please see the asset investment page.