HIGHWAYS supremo John Thomson is keeping his fingers crossed that the wet and cold weather that besieged Wiltshire this time last year will not return.

Last year as major floods hit the county the council’s contractors Balfour Beatty had to deal with 1,275 potholes being reported between December 24 and January 20.

The year previous the number in the same period was just 332.

Coun Thomson said this week that so far this year the weather had been kind but the council was ready to deal with a sudden change.

At the beginning of 2014 the council announced it is to spend £21 million on resurfacing roads every year for the next six years - a £52m increase in what was due to be spent.

But Coun Thomson said that unlike many aspects of the council’s contract with Balfour Beatty such as grass cutting the agreement on road maintenance was not a fixed price.

He said: “That is why it is important for people to use the app. That way our officers and Balfour Beatty can keep tabs on what potholes are being reported and when they are repaired.”

He said that in the summer Balfour Beatty had tried to claim extra money from Wiltshire after warm and wet weather led to an increase in the need for grass cutting. The council had refused to pay and the contractor had not pursued the matter.

In July the contractor apologised for its shortcomings on grass cutting and promised to improve.

At the time Balfour Beatty spokesman Tom Harvey said: “Despite allocating substantial additional resources to grass cutting, we fell behind schedule in a small number of areas, most notably in West Wiltshire.

"We take any failure of delivery very seriously and will continue to review the service very closely with Wiltshire Council, deploying additional resources where needed.”

Coun Thomson said that overall he felt the service provided by Balfour Beatty was improving after teething problems experienced when it was first awarded the five year contract, said to be worth £150m, in December 2012.

He said: “There is a new management team locally and that is helping.”

He said that any disputes between Balfour Beatty and Wiltshire Council over invoices were resolved by an independent arbitrator.

“We negotiated a good deal and so it is only natural that Balfour Beatty are going to be looking at ways to invoice for everything they can and our officers are going to be scrutinizing that.”

A Balfour Beatty spokesperson said: “The storms between December 2014 and January 2015 saw record rainfall and large areas of the UK flooded, which led to deterioration of roads across the country.

"During this extreme weather, our teams were out every day clearing trees and floods.

"We will continue to support our local authority partners whatever the weather over the 2014-2015 winter period.”