Councils and potholes.

[Paul Walters]

Potholes are filled on a public safety priority basis. They are categorised into 3 levels with the most dangerous ones being done first. We operate a 24 hour response time for really bad ones, then it goes to 1 week, 1 month and 3 months. Streets are inspected on a traffic or pedestrian volume basis, so the most heavily used roads and footways are inspected more frequently than the lesser used ones. We have an 8-man team who's only job is driving or walking on every street in the area at least once a year simply monitoring and reporting defects. We also respond to calls from the public and other bodies who have the statutory right to dig up the road. Another team is tasked with monitoring and controlling the reinstatements made by those statutory bodies so ensure they do a proper job !

Many potholes are only the surface symptom of a problem deeper down in the road construction, often as the result of the failure of the sub-grade (ground) or sub-base layer (stone bottom layer of the road), and so pouring new tarmac into the top is not always the answer.

The funding for pothole repairs normally comes from the revenue based "maintenance" budget, and is allocated on a yearly basis. Resurfacing footpaths and replacing kerbs etc is funded from "capital" monies, and is therefore a separate budget, and often on a 5-year rolling programme of "planned" or "strategic" maintenance works. That's why you can have a pothole strewn carriageway that is not being addressed, and then be rebuilding the footway alongside it. We have a "joined up thinking" policy (when it works), so that if we go in to do a footway, and the road is shot, we do repairs to the road, and journal our costs to the maintenance budget on completion.

Of course, each head of department has some degree of autonomy in how they spend their allocation of cash, and so there is a frantic waving of magic wands at the end of the financial year, to balance the books!

Hope that helps to explain it :-)

 

[darth vadar]

Potholes are filled on a public safety priority basis. They are categorised into 3 levels with the most dangerous ones being done first. We operate a 24 hour response time for really bad ones, then it goes to 1 week, 1 month and 3 months. Streets are inspected on a traffic or pedestrian volume basis, so the most heavily used roads and footways are inspected more frequently than the lesser used ones. We have an 8-man team who's only job is driving or walking on every street in the area at least once a year simply monitoring and reporting defects. We also respond to calls from the public and other bodies who have the statutory right to dig up the road. Another team is tasked with monitoring and controlling the reinstatements made by those statutory bodies so ensure they do a proper job !

Many potholes are only the surface symptom of a problem deeper down in the road construction, often as the result of the failure of the sub-grade (ground) or sub-base layer (stone bottom layer of the road), and so pouring new tarmac into the top is not always the answer.

The funding for pothole repairs normally comes from the revenue based "maintenance" budget, and is allocated on a yearly basis. Resurfacing footpaths and replacing kerbs etc is funded from "capital" monies, and is therefore a separate budget, and often on a 5-year rolling programme of "planned" or "strategic" maintenance works. That's why you can have a pothole strewn carriageway that is not being addressed, and then be rebuilding the footway alongside it. We have a "joined up thinking" policy (when it works), so that if we go in to do a footway, and the road is shot, we do repairs to the road, and journal our costs to the maintenance budget on completion.

Of course, each head of department has some degree of autonomy in how they spend their allocation of cash, and so there is a frantic waving of magic wands at the end of the financial year, to balance the books!

Hope that helps to explain it :-)

In theory perhaps.

Maybe, the obvious answer therefore is to switch revenue and capital monies for a year or two, or at least until the backlog of repairs have been carried out?

Seems easy enough to me.

 

[Goldfang]

As a local councillor< I hope I can speak with some authority on this subject! First thing to remember is that , depending where you live, the local council is often not responsible for potholes. More often than not, they are the responsibility of the county council, outside of the big metropolitan authorities. And in turn, potholes will be dealt with by the authorities contractors. if you damage your bike or yourself, always, if able to! take a picture of the offending hole for future reference. It is amazing how quickly these holes get filled in when word gets around that there has been an accident. Giving the authority the chance to say that the road was ok, it happened to someone I know. You can claim for the cost of repair to/or replacement of any damage, get a letter and receipt from your LBS to back up your claim. They generally pay up, whilst accepting no responsibility!
For general reporting of potoles and other highway problems, it is worth finding out if your county or local authority has a similar scheme to Streetdoctor here in Northants who you can phone or contact online.
Regards, Goldfang.i

 

[PoliceMadAd]

Derby City has Streetpride, that's what i use.

 

[darth vadar]

As a local councillor< I hope I can speak with some authority on this subject! First thing to remember is that , depending where you live, the local council is often not responsible for potholes. More often than not, they are the responsibility of the county council, outside of the big metropolitan authorities. And in turn, potholes will be dealt with by the authorities contractors. if you damage your bike or yourself, always, if able to! take a picture of the offending hole for future reference. It is amazing how quickly these holes get filled in when word gets around that there has been an accident. Giving the authority the chance to say that the road was ok, it happened to someone I know. You can claim for the cost of repair to/or replacement of any damage, get a letter and receipt from your LBS to back up your claim. They generally pay up, whilst accepting no responsibility!
For general reporting of potoles and other highway problems, it is worth finding out if your county or local authority has a similar scheme to Streetdoctor here in Northants who you can phone or contact online.
Regards, Goldfang.i

With respect though, we need all our Council's to be pro-active not reactive (by which time it is too late)

Giving advice on how to make a claim following an accident sounds like an admission of defeat to me.

My council are a Unitary authority so are responsible for the provision of all their own services.

They do daft things like 'Town Twinning' which benefits hardly anyone, and sending out glossy brochures to households telling us how good they are. What they don't seem to understand is that that money would/could be better spent on things like (fixing potholes in the road).

 

[GFamily]

Warrington council have been pretty decent in responding to potholes reported. All the obscure ones have been filled within a week but some of the high traffic ones are still waiting. Low priority i guess

Next door Halton Council are pretty good, reported via FTH on Tuesday evening, and filled by Friday morning.

 

[PatrickPending]

Leiceaster ok, but special mention goes to Coventry - the roads there are bloomin awful - more pothole than road - and once reported you are lucky if they fix them within the year.....

 

[chewy]

Used 'fill that hole' with success, although can't say as i've tried the council direct.

As for speed bumps, i've found they often have the opposite effect and SLOW me down! Against Trade Descriptions surely ;-)

 

[Nightman]

Quote from a villager in Oxfordshire. "This lane used to be narrow and full of pot-holes. Then the council came along and widened it and re-surfaced it. That made the traffic go faster. So the council came along and put in narrow places and speed humps."

 

[Nightman]

What is a pot-hole in a speed hump called?

 

[subaqua]

waltham forest are particularly crap.

when they eventually do go out to repair they just shove a bit of blacktop in and leave it. an inverse pothole that crumbles away rather quickly.

the surveyor even marked out where to cut back to. the biggest bugbear is that the sub structure is a cobbled street and if the topping had been applied properly in first place there wouldn't be a pothole issue.

maybe they should have left the cobbles.

 

[henshaw11]

@Paul

I think Surrey County Council has added the levels of 1yr, 2yrs and never. In the middle of town (Walton-On-Thames) on a sharp corner (two narrow lanes, just) what was a narrow gap in the tarmac between the two lanes, that would might have sensibly been repaired with some bitumen infill* to seal it has widened further. A year ago I slid sideways into it on the recumbent but recovered, the holes are now summat 6" across over a 6ft or more section, mebbe an an inch deep - now I'd be off. They're probably now big enough to be a danger if a car tried to overtake on the inside and hit the holes
There's also a bloody awful section about 15 ft on that stretches right across the outside - on a bike you have to weave a fair bit to miss the worst of it - and looking at fillthathole the first note goes back to 2009 !

As for damage underneath - our road (a cul-de-sac, so not exactly heavy traffic use, and very low on priority I'd expect) has holes that have opened up further and 1"+ stones underneath are now getting thrown out - the underlying surface might not have been damaged initially but it bloomin' well is now...somone came round last year and patched 2 or three, but the rest of the surrounding area is so bad I wondered why they even bothered - and there's another handful further along the road which are as bad.
On the flip side, my OH reckons a really bad drain cover repair on an island leading onto the A3 has been filled, so obviously they haven't been *completely* sitting on their hands..

There was an article in the (sunday?) times some weeks ago which I gather concerned the state of the roads in the uk, or at least SCC must have got a mention - Dr Whatshisface of SCC had the bloomin' cheek to write in, in defence.

Interesting you mentioned separate pots for footpaths and roads - in Walton quite a lot of money is being thrown at pavement improvements (possibly by the town council I guess), which seems a funny thing to throw money at (and particularly in the current climate).
S'pose I ought to collar one of the councillors, he lives a handful of doors away - and cycles too, that dodgy set of repairs are almost outside his house!

Paul - as a matter on interest - I'm sure years ago when tarmac was removed/replaced, a bitumen/tar infill was poured into the meeting edges, presumably to seal it. That doesn't seem to be done nowadays, and given the argument used about road damage due to freezing, it seems a funny thing *not* to do - seems a good way of letting water in to freeze later, assuming it doesn't drain through beneath. Or did it simply not work as intended in the first place ?

 

[darth vadar]

I had the misfortune of travelling down the road thats runs parallel with Liverpool John Lennon Airport (Hale Village to Speke) It must be a mile or so long and looks like a giant patchwork quilt. It even has potholes in the potholes.

It is a shambles.

I have reported it previously via FTH but they just did a rubbish job in trying to fix it.

I reckon it falls into the category of the worse road surface in the UK.

Or do you know different?!!!!

 

[pepecat]

In Brum the approach to potholes appears to be random at best. I think the council have recently been using up their road surfacing budget as they've done a few roads close to where i live which didn't really need doing, and left another one which is patched to the nth degree and could do with re surfacing. Potholes seem to keep appearing and getting bigger, and nothing happens. Makes for an uncomfortable ride along that road!

 

[Hacienda71]

Cheshire East have just announced a load of extra money is to be allocated for fixing potholes. I wait with baited breath to see the results.