Hit squads are being sent out by Wiltshire Council to fill the potholes in the county’s roads following flooding estimated to have caused damage that will cost £2 million to repair.
The council is investing an extra £250,000 — in addition to the £52 million increase in road spending announced last November — to repair potholes before forecasted colder weather sets in.
Four teams of two-person pothole hit-squads are filling the worst of the damage caused or made worse by the heavy rainfall of the last few weeks.
Armed with supplies of water-based road repair material, which can be used even where potholes are still full of water, the teams from the council’s highways maintenance contractor Balfour Beatty are targeting damage that can be repaired quickly without the need to close roads.
They are working on information about potholes that need filling coming from members of the public, via the MyWiltshire app, social media, email and phone calls to the council on 0300 456 0105, as well as internally from the council’s area teams around the county.
“The prolonged period of heavy rain and flooding has clearly damaged our road network – estimated at up to £2 million,” John Thomson, the council’s Cabinet member response for highways, told Marlborough News Online.
“The risk is that figure will increase rapidly and significantly if a forecast cold spell causes the water still in the potholes to freeze. Therefore, we are using the window of opportunity now that the worst of the flooding is abating to redeploy some of those teams to filling potholes, with the priority on those where there is a clear safety issue to road users.”
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