Extra £4.8m to fund pothole repair programme

Heavy wind and rain led to more than 22,000 potholes needing to be repaired

An extra £4.8m is set to be spent repairing Nottinghamshire's roads following one of the wettest winters in recent memory.

Highways across the county were badly damaged in the wake of flooding caused by Storm Babet in October and Storm Henk in January.

More than 22,000 potholes had to be repaired in the county between October 2023 and March 2024 – three times the number for the same period the previous winter.

Insurance claims against the county council also doubled to more than 2,300.

'Severely tested'

Storm Babet in October 2023 saw 124mm of rain fall on Nottinghamshire in just three days, while another 75mm fell during Storm Henk in December.

Rainfall between 1 October and 4 January was 170% more than the long term average.

Both storms caused widespread disruption, with dozens of roads closed and more than 1,600 homes and businesses flooded.

Under the new proposals two extra teams would be set up to deal with serious potholes and road problems, along with seven large-scale patching schemes to target problem areas, said the Local Democracy Reporting Service.

The money is in addition to the council’s approved £33m highways budget for this financial year.

The work will be carried out by Via, the council-owned company responsible for highway maintenance.

“Via’s capacity to both respond to the storm events and also tackle the damage to the network was severely tested,” a report going before Nottinghamshire County Council's cabinet said.

“Whilst extra resources were put in place at the beginning of the winter to continue with follow up repairs to Category 1 defects [the most serious non-emergency potholes], there was a need to temporarily increase the amount of safety repairs with follow-up repairs being planned for 24/25.”

The council's cabinet will consider the plans on 25 July.

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