Councillors in Devon have decided to carry out a ‘repair blitz’ by filling all potholes in designated trial areas, rather than focussing on safety defects.
Although the exact details are still to be agreed, the council said the pilot 'would be used to establish the budget implications of changing maintenance procedures'.
Cllr Dan Thomas, cabinet member for Highways, said: ‘We have a repair backlog of around £390 million, and to keep us in a steady state it costs around £102 million a year. We don’t have that, so whatever we do under the current funding formula, we’re not going to solve the problem – we have to be clear about that.
‘We’re asking for a trial in a few areas to fill all potholes, not just safety defects, when visiting a site. By asking to trial this change it’s a very different notion from where we were before and we want to establish what the cost implications are and how effective that would be on the lower category roads.’
The council has approved £83m for highway maintenance schemes, with councillors also agreeing to review previous cabinet’s decisions on the future delivery model for highway maintenance and also to ‘examine the costs of accelerating the remarking of white lines across the county’.
A task group from the Audit Committee is set to carry out the review.
