Potholes

Potholes are a problem which can occur almost anywhere, particularly in late winter and early spring, when the road network has been subjected to freezing and thawing cycles. Deep potholes are the type of defect which require an urgent response, as they are a potential danger. We aim to have such deep potholes repaired or made safe within one working day, or five working days on minor rural roads. If there is a pothole in your area then you can report a pothole online.

Whenever possible, we carry out permanent repairs by cutting out the affected area around the pothole, sealing the sides of the hole, filling it with hot bitumen macadam and compacting the material with a roller or vibrating plate. This involves a considerable amount of equipment, so it is not always possible to be in the right place to carry out a full repair immediately on every urgent pothole. When this is not possible, we use cold material as an emergency measure and aim to go back to carry out a permanent repair in the near future, when the right gang are working in the area. Emergency repairs are not as effective as permanent ones and sometimes fail, so repeat visits are sometimes necessary.

In addition to repairing potholes, we carry out programmed patching work so that the road is prepared for surface dressing in the coming years. An inspector will walk the section of road and mark out the areas which are cracked, crazed and generally worn out and require attention with spray paint before the repair work starts on site. These sections are then cut out and carefully replaced with new material. Once a length of road has been thoroughly patched, it will probably be surface dressed within a couple of years. Follow this link for information on our surface dressing programme.