Council to spend extra £4m on potholes after 'cry for help'

The authority will use ‘responsive patching’ to repair potholes

An extra £4m will be spent repairing a county's potholes after locals issued a "cry for help" over the state of its roads, a council has said.

Lancashire County Council said potholes were the public's "main concern" and agreed to boost the budget for highway repairs at a cabinet meeting on Thursday.

The authority said the extra funding had come from an earlier-than-expected windfall from the sale of some of its buildings.

Deputy council leader Alan Vincent said residents had made it "abundantly clear" they wanted highway improvements.

The council said the money would be split across two different schemes – both of which were designed to reduce the need for repeat visits to problem areas.  

It said about £2.5m will be used to fund "responsive patching", which would make make good quality repairs to areas where the surface was in poor condition and multiple potholes had already been filled in, while the remaining £1.5m would bolster the Local Deterioration Fund, which funded larger repairs.

It said schemes would be prioritised according to the number of defects, how many repeat visits they have had and the volume of claims received.

'Proper piece of repair'

Mr Vincent said the council was "listening to that cry for help” and believed the repairs were how residents wanted any surplus spent.

Councillor Rupert Swarbrick said he hoped the funding would address some of the public’s frustrations with potholes, including a policy which meant they had to be at least 1.5in (4cm) deep to be eligible for repair.

"People do get frustrated when they see a team go out and they fill a hole that’s 90mm deep, but leave the one next to it that hasn’t reached intervention level," he said.

He said the new funds would mean "we’re not going back" to the other one later would ensure "a proper piece of repair".

A report presented to the council's cabinet revealed the pothole problem had been driven by the amount of rain that fell on Lancashire over the winter period – 175% more than the seasonal average.

The council said the extra funding will also be used to respond to road issues raised by residents and county councillors.

The authority has also pledged to invest a further £1m in the replacement of road signs and markings that have been deemed a safety issue.