Garage orders £9k worth of tyres due to potholes

Steven Johnstone said customers had come to him with deflated tyres, bent alloys and broken suspension coil springs

A Cambridgeshire garage said it ordered more than £9,000 worth of tyres in just one month this year - more than quadruple its normal amount - due to customers experiencing punctures from potholes.

Cottenham Tyre and Autocentre said it usually spent about £2,000 on tyres monthly, but had to order in many more in February due to unprecedented levels of rain.

Garage owner Steven Johnstone said: "It's been crazy due to potholes."

County council figures show Cambridgeshire currently has more than 6,000 holes that require filling. The authority said it could fix 1,500 per week and that millions of pounds of new funding would see roads improve.

In 2023-24, 24% of claims for pothole damage were paid out by Cambridgeshire County Council

Mr Johnstone said: "February was by far the worst. With all the rain we had, it seemed everyone was driving through puddles totally unaware they were in fact large potholes.

"We saw bent alloys, broken suspension coil springs. But mostly, deflated tyres.

"In an average month we order around £2,000 worth of tyres. Last February we needed to order more than £9,000."

When asked if it was good for business, he said: "We feel for the customer. But when it gets offered up to us, we're happy to take it and help the customer out."

'Years of underinvestment'

The county council said it filled more than 50,000 potholes in 2022-23.

More than 20,000 were done manually, but the majority were filled by a machine called the Dragon Patcher - which the council was the first authority to acquire in 2018.

It fixes potholes by drying the area with a flame, blowing it clean, then filling it with tar. A two-man crew can fill the same number of holes as a six person team doing it by hand.

Cambridgeshire County Council has access to four Dragon Patchers, which can fill up to 150 potholes a day

The council has access to four of the machines, which they lease at no fixed cost but pay for depending on usage.

The average cost of a machine fix is £29 per pothole, with the equivalent road crew costing £88.

Alex Beckett, chair of highways and transport at the council, said there had been "years of underinvestment in highways across the country" and it was not a "unique" problem locally.

However, he added: "This year we are managing to invest a lot more in the county's roads.

"An extra £20m is earmarked specifically for that purpose, which is great news, as I appreciate it is a big problem across the entire county."