Shropshire Council welcomes £1.86m of government pothole funding

Shropshire Council has welcomed the award of almost £1.86m from the Department for Transport (DfT) to help repair potholes and protect the county’s roads from future severe weather.

It’s part of £100m awarded to councils across the country following the prolonged spell of winter weather that has caused a high number of potholes and other road defects.

The money will be added to the council’s 2018/19 highways budget so that proper engineering treatments can be applied once the weather improves.

It will increase the council’s resurfacing budget, minor works budget, surface dressing budget, and RoadMaster budget, as well as top up local pothole repair budgets

Shropshire Council is already directing additional resources into treating potholes and has increased the number of teams tackling potholes from 12 to 25.

However, as cold and wet weather conditions are not always conducive to carrying out effective and lasting repairs, the bulk of the council’s annual road repair budget is invested in the summer months when working conditions are better, and longer lasting repairs can be carried out.

Councillor Steve Davenport, Shropshire Council’s Cabinet member for highways and transport, said:

“We recognise that residents are concerned about the number of potholes appearing on our roads and we’re working flat out throughout the county to address the problem on a priority basis. This additional funding is very welcome and will enable us to carry out longer-lasting repairs to our roads once the weather improves, as well as protecting our roads against future damage.”

From 1 April 2018 Shropshire Council’s new highways contractor, Kier, will take on responsibility for repairing road defects – including pothole repair, resurfacing, surface dressing and patching – and will immediately begin work at a number of sites that have already been identified as requiring work.

This year (2017/18) Shropshire Council has already been awarded two tranches of pothole funding from central government:

• the first payment was £1,335,000 (this has been fully spent on treating potholes).
• a further payment of £936,000 was awarded in February 2018. £100,000 of this money has been allocated for additional pothole repairs by Ringway in March 2018. The remaining £836,000 has been allocated into the 2018/19 budget.

For more information about how we identify and treat potholes, click here to see our blog and video.

Further  information

1) Shropshire Council has been awarded £1,858,807 by the DfT.

2) Potholes are categorised according to a national standard of acceptable road surface quality.

The severity of the pothole and, therefore, the urgency of treating it, is determined by the risk it poses to road users. Factors to be taken into account include location; size and depth of pothole; traffic type, speed and volume; road type; alignment and visibility and also the position in relation to road width.

3) To report a pothole, click here to visit the Shropshire Council website.

4) If a pothole has been outlined with paint it has already been inspected and programmed to be fixed, so doesn’t need to be reported.

5) Shropshire Council isn’t responsible for potholes on the following roads:

• Private roads – these are the responsibility of residents of each private road.
• M54, A5, A49 (south of Shrewsbury); A458 (Shrewsbury to Welshpool); A483 (Llanymynech to Oswestry) — these are the responsibility of Highways England
• Roads on private land, eg. retail parks.