Council spends a forture repairing potholes, but many more remain

8:30am Monday 11th February 2013 in News By David Wiles

Councillor Derique Montaut in Princes Street Swindon which has some nasty potholes Councillor Derique Montaut in Princes Street Swindon which has some nasty potholes

SWINDON Council has tackled more than 2,000 potholes so far this financial year – but residents say many holes remain unfilled.

Two years ago, the Government announced that Swindon would get a slice of an additional £100million to tackle potholes, on top of the £831m provided already to councils in England. The Government also allocated £3billion over four years for the pothole problem.

Swindon Council has revealed that since the start of April it has repaired 2,204 potholes at a cost of approximately £43,000 – but residents say more could be done and ward councillors want the Government to hand out more funding.

The Adver had a huge response to an appeal asking readers to send in names and photographs of bad areas. Suggested blackspots included the slip road from Park North joining Drakes Way, Mill Lane towards Wharf Road, the exit from Howse Garden onto Northern Road, the road between junction 16 and Royal Wootton Bassett, Montagu Street, Morris Street, Summer Street and Deburgh Street.

Lyn Townsend, who has lived in Redcliffe Street, Rodbourne, with her husband Ken since 1965, said her road was resurfaced in 2010 after the couple lobbied the council for about two years, but many of the surrounding streets were still potholed and it needed to be sorted out urgently.

She said: “There’s some right ones around Rodbourne. There’s several along Deburgh Street and Summer Street. There was some quite bad ones down there as well.

“I’m always phoning up but they don’t take any notice. “I’m always phoning up about something but all you get ‘oh, it has got to have 10 days’ notice until they can come out’, but they come out and put a yellow line around the hole and they have to go to talk about it I suppose, but it never seems to get beyond the yellow line.”

She said badly potholed roads needed to be resurfaced because the substance used to fill potholes comes out easily after rain or frost, but many of the local roads had not been resurfaced in years.

Mike Townsend, 73, of Upham Road, Old Walcot, who has lived in the area since 1955, said the pothole problem had improved slightly on the estate in the last year or so but was still an issue on some roads.

He said: “There’s still potholes. The biggest problem is that they come along, patch up the road, and then unfortunately vehicles cut it up. “Someone comes out and looks at it and puts some yellow around it and a team comes and puts some stuff in. “Most of the potholes, they stick Tarmac in and use a rammer and ram it down and that’s about it, but unfortunately it doesn’t stick that well.”

Coun Fionuala Foley, cabinet member for Streetmart and corporate services, said: “We have received 618 reports of potholes from the public so far this financial year, but our highways inspectors have also identified many more defects.

“Up until this week, we have repaired 2,204 potholes at a cost of approximately £43,000, “However, we also carry out other repairs on the roads which do not meet our set pothole criteria.

“After last month’s snow, we also carried out a ‘find and fix’ programme with our contractor Swindon Commercial Services Ltd, where a crew inspected the main gritting routes for potholes and fixed more than 300 defects as soon as they were identified.”

To report potholes, email the Streetsmart team on streetsmart@swindon.gov.uk

Comments(33)

Tim Newroman says...
8:40am Mon 11 Feb 13

The main problem is that they don't seal the repairs, so as soon as it rains again, the work is undone. Totally pointless.

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nobody says...
8:49am Mon 11 Feb 13

Swindon roads are in a right state and the repairs seem to turn a hole into a hump then falls apart and back to a hole again.

I saw a council guy with his yellow paint on a road that needs to be resurfaced but he just marked the really bad potholes. Does not help that the government redefined what a pothole is, at least 20mm deep instead of 10mm.

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RichardR1 says...
8:53am Mon 11 Feb 13

So that's what a pot hole looks like.

Tim is it anything less than expected from those Swindon Council contract too.

The whole time they pay the bills regards it will continue.

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silvergran says...
9:00am Mon 11 Feb 13

I know we have potholes in Swindon but in comparison to the Cheltenham area, we are doing OK. A lot of roads I have been using in that area are horrendous with many deep potholes - I'm sure a lot of drivers in Cheltenham must be having big problems with the state of their cars!

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Phantom Poster says...
9:02am Mon 11 Feb 13

RichardR1 wrote:
So that's what a pot hole looks like. Tim is it anything less than expected from those Swindon Council contract too. The whole time they pay the bills regards it will continue.
????

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Phantom Poster says...
9:06am Mon 11 Feb 13

silvergran wrote:
I know we have potholes in Swindon but in comparison to the Cheltenham area, we are doing OK. A lot of roads I have been using in that area are horrendous with many deep potholes - I'm sure a lot of drivers in Cheltenham must be having big problems with the state of their cars!
You're not allowed to post that sort of comment here. Swindon must always be the worst for absolutely everything. It's what the moaners on here rely on!

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tarot says...
9:36am Mon 11 Feb 13

What is a forture?

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itsamess3 says...
9:53am Mon 11 Feb 13

In the last debate on potholes the council claimed they had purchased new machines that heated and sealed the repaired sections quickly and efficiently. Guess they are still learning how to use them.

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Davidsyrett says...
9:54am Mon 11 Feb 13

Forget about the pothole, what about the flood between Highworth and Stratton? SBC's solution Traffic lights!! Why not clear the ditches??

have to say though that at less than £20 a pothole I doubt whether the repairs are good quality ones!

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Grimwald says...
9:56am Mon 11 Feb 13

So a pothole costs £19.50 to fill, big deal!! But dropping a bit of tarmac into a hole with a crew of eight people and two lorries does not look too bad to me. Could the real private sector do it for less?

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Grimwald says...
9:57am Mon 11 Feb 13

The fact it comes out again the following month is another matter!

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Ricky1 says...
10:30am Mon 11 Feb 13

Its Swindon Council at fault again, I notice that Labour controlled councils in the North manage to repair roads properly and keep them up to a high standard, and they get far worse weather than we do. Most of Swindon's roads need resurfacing completely and that is because they haven't been looked after in the past. Stitch in time........

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Ricky1 says...
10:33am Mon 11 Feb 13

Thamesdown drive was resurfaced and was left with cracks and holes in the new surface; are we suing the contractors for it to be re done? or has no one noticed?

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Davey Gravey says...
10:45am Mon 11 Feb 13

Sbc contractors use poor quality tarmac and don't put it down properly.

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MrAngry says...
11:22am Mon 11 Feb 13

Davey Gravey wrote:
Sbc contractors use poor quality tarmac and don't put it down properly.
I think they fill potholes with 'deferred set' tarmac which is laid cold and is similar to the stuff that you can buy in Wickes.

When a road is resurfaced, they:-
1. Plane off the old surface which also roughens up the area below.
2. Apply a tack coat.
3. Lay tarmac which arrives in insulated lorries at approx 200 degrees centigrade.
4. Compact it with heavy vibrating rollers.

When they fill a pothole they:-
1. Chuck a shovel full of cold deferred set tarmac in the hole.
2. Compact it by hitting it with the back of the shovel.

It isn't really practical to fill potholes with material at 200 degrees as it needs to be laid quickly by machine and not a shovel full here and another there. They could do much more to prepare the potholes first though such as cut them square, roughen the surface, use a tack coat, combine several small potholes into one large patch.

They don't tend to seal the edges with hot pitch these days as it is slippery when wet and dangerous for motorcycles.

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MrAngry says...
11:38am Mon 11 Feb 13

If you work for the council, you have to complete risk assessments and don a yellow jacket and safety boots before setting foot on the carriageway, but if you are a councillor, you can kneel in the road and have your photo taken dressed as Harry Potter without following any of the procedures.

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Tim Newroman says...
11:56am Mon 11 Feb 13

MrAngry wrote:
If you work for the council, you have to complete risk assessments and don a yellow jacket and safety boots before setting foot on the carriageway, but if you are a councillor, you can kneel in the road and have your photo taken dressed as Harry Potter without following any of the procedures.
Nice work, Sir!

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gina948 says...
12:23pm Mon 11 Feb 13

MrAngry wrote:
If you work for the council, you have to complete risk assessments and don a yellow jacket and safety boots before setting foot on the carriageway, but if you are a councillor, you can kneel in the road and have your photo taken dressed as Harry Potter without following any of the procedures.
Was he kneeling??? I thought he was standing in a pot hole pointing at a pot hole!!! Tee Hee!

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itsamess3 says...
12:54pm Mon 11 Feb 13

Was he kneeling??? I thought he was standing in a pot hole pointing at a pot hole!!! Tee Hee!”
Praying the pothole would miraculously repair itself-see tomorrows adver to see if it worked.

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sputnik says...
12:57pm Mon 11 Feb 13

SBC clearly lack good management and supervision. It is about time all work was subject to quality audit, as it seems that a lot of work goes unchecked. pot holes are not repaired effectively, grass in not cut with care , litter is not cleared, street lights go unrepaired the list goes on. The whole lot needs to follow the quality model that is used in private industry.

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Blackwell 2 says...
1:00pm Mon 11 Feb 13

How come no other councillors have noticed the pot holes?

It's hardly a carefully guarded secret to anyone who drives a car

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sputnik says...
1:39pm Mon 11 Feb 13

Blackwell 2 wrote:
How come no other councillors have noticed the pot holes?

It's hardly a carefully guarded secret to anyone who drives a car
having recently had an issue, where I contacted 7 local councillors with only one reply, I think it's safe to say that you will hear more from them nearer to their bids for re-election

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Hmmmf says...
1:59pm Mon 11 Feb 13

Hole in Princes Street, Labour Looking Into It.

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gina948 says...
2:16pm Mon 11 Feb 13

Hmmmf wrote:
Hole in Princes Street, Labour Looking Into It.
Was that an A Hole by any chance....considerin
g the council are "involved"!!

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swindonman89 says...
3:38pm Mon 11 Feb 13

the pot hole on the exit of the bus station need's repairing !!!!

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PaulD says...
4:24pm Mon 11 Feb 13

due to the definition of how deep a hole has to be before it can be filled you see some weird repairs.

The holes between Lidl and B&Q were terrible and they have been filled, but the whole hold hasn't been filled because the edges are not deep enough to be considered a pothole. This means that the repair work will start to come undone because of the incomplete work.

If a pothole is to be filled, then fill the whole thing! Otherwise it is just a pointless waste of time and money

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Oik1 says...
5:16pm Mon 11 Feb 13

If you think the pot-hole situation is bad for cars and their drivers just give a thought to motorcyclists and the somewhat lethal position they can find themselves in with some of these holes.

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TinkeyWinkey says...
8:54pm Mon 11 Feb 13

Loads in the road by me and fed up reporting them as nothing ever gets done. Chase it up and it's with a Highways Inspector - do they only have one as he never seems to be at the end of the phone when you ask to speak to him.


And didn't they just report they've cut the Highways Budget, so no chance of repairs now

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Captain T says...
10:02pm Mon 11 Feb 13

Half the problem in the UK in general is that we bury all our utilities under the road and pavement and tarmac over it. This means every time some work needs done, the surface is gradually weakened from gas/phone/electric companies etc digging up a small area and then slapping down a substandard strip of tarmac.

What we should do is follow the American example. Lay the utilities under the pavement and instead of using tarmac, have huge concrete slabs which are lifted up so the work can be carried out, then replaced afterwards and no tarmac in sight. That way, the roads are by and large, left totally free of any utilities and therefore seldom dug up, except for major resurfacing work. If you go to Germany, you see a similar thing where a lot of utilities piping is actually above ground rather than below it.

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house on the hill says...
1:50pm Tue 12 Feb 13

""""Davey Gravey says...
10:45am Mon 11 Feb 13

Sbc contractors use poor quality tarmac and don't put it down properly""""

That is so they can come back again and get paid again and again for filling the same pothole, have you not worked that one out? Most of their work is pretty shoddy and takes about 4 men to do it and after that they all head to the cake shop and a lie down! The rest of the work is done badly on purpose so they can rake in more and more money from the taxpayer when they have to do it again.

The roads in this country are badly biult in general compared to most other countries, not just in Swindon but everywhere. Any sort of rain or snow and they crack and split and from the on its fill and fall out etc etc.

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Tim Newroman says...
8:13am Wed 13 Feb 13

house on the hill wrote...
That is so they can come back again and get paid again and again for filling the same pothole, have you not worked that one out?

It does appear that way. Some time ago a fairly significant pothole developed in the road near my house and I watched as one SBC worker came out, filled it, patted it down and drove off. Within 24 hours the filling had come out and the pothole was the same as it had been the day before.

Cue another worker coming out a few days later to do the same thing. With the same result.

A few days after that, two workers came out, filled it properly, levelled it properly and then sealed it properly. A year later that third repair holds good.

The first two attempts were simply a complete waste of time, money and resources. The worst part is that when the public know exactly what will happen to those shoddy repairs, it must be the case that SBC and their workers know it too.

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Dick-Turpin says...
11:08pm Wed 13 Feb 13

There is no such thing as a Highway Inspector these days they are now Environmental Officers who look after everything from the roads, parks and waste so no real specialty. These officers are employed by Swindon Commercial Services, the same contractor who slap the Tarmac, who is going to challenge the repeat work that was in the post above?

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Dick-Turpin says...
11:08pm Wed 13 Feb 13

There is no such thing as a Highway Inspector these days they are now Environmental Officers who look after everything from the roads, parks and waste so no real specialty. These officers are employed by Swindon Commercial Services, the same contractor who slap the Tarmac, who is going to challenge the repeat work that was in the post above?

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