Posted on Tuesday 21st November 2023
Cabinet Member for Highways and Transport at Staffordshire County Council, David Williams, with a thermal road repairs machine.
Staffordshire County Council is making good on its promise to fix more roads across the county with 16,308 pothole repair jobs completed so far.
A ‘job’ is, on average, two or three potholes at a time – meaning the number of potholes filled across the county is likely to be double or even triple that figure.
In 2022, Staffordshire Highways filled 16,039 carriageway potholes, significantly exceeding the national Local Authority average of 11,229. This year has already seen crews surpass their 2022 total.
Earlier this year, SCC announced an investment of £30 million into maintaining and improving the county’s highways over the next two years. This is on top of the £5 million funding for road repairs and £4.8 million received from the Department for Transport’s pothole fund.
Some of this money has been invested in groundbreaking AI technology that identifies and categories potholes as well as innovative machinery, like the JCB Pothole Pro, to repair defects.
Two million pounds from the pothole fund has enabled county councillors to prioritise non-urgent nuisance potholes reported locally.
Staffordshire will additionally be receiving over £186 million of the £8.3 billion government investment into England’s roads for the next 11 years. This funding became available following the cancellation of HS2 north of Birmingham.
Residents can report potholes on the county council’s website, using the ‘Report It’ function. Repairs are then prioritised depending on the severity and dangerousness of the defect.
Cabinet Member for Highways and Transport at Staffordshire County Council, David Williams, said:
“We inspect over 1,200 miles of roads and footways each month to check for safety defects because we know how important it is to keep our highways well maintained.
“These figures show that Staffordshire County Council is well above the national average when it comes to pothole repairs and it something we are very proud of. On average, our crews fill a pothole every eight minutes.
“To deliver on our promise to fix more of our county’s roads, we have invested £30 million on cutting edge technology, including use of artificial intelligence and the innovative JCB Pothole Pro, to detect and repair defects.”