Hertfordshire County Council has seen a huge spike in the public reporting potholes this winter.
It has received 3,634 reports during January 2018, compared to fewer than two thousand (1,841) for the same period in 2017.
The council said the key reason for these potholes has been the repeated fluctuations in road temperature to below and above freezing, resulting in a freeze and thaw process where rain water within the road surface expands by almost 10% when frozen, melts back down when the temperature rises to fill the cracks formed and then expand as the temperature drops again. Wet weather caused additional damage, washing away loose surface materials.
Hertfordshire CC said that so far this winter season it has made 66 gritting runs, compared to 44 for the whole of last winter, with the winter season going on until the end of April.
Executive member for highways, Ralph Sangster, said: ‘These figures show that our highways have had an extremely tough winter – with both freezing and wet weather increasing the number of potholes.
‘Alongside the planned investment into the maintenance of our busiest roads, we are investing an additional £29m over the next four years to improve the condition of Hertfordshire’s unclassified road network – that’s the roads that most of us live on, as well as rural lanes; and we have already prioritised the fixing of potholes above other areas such as gully clearing or hedge trimming.
‘We’re also using a high-pressure Jet Patcher system to repair carriageway defects which could turn into potholes if not treated in an even faster and effective way to support the high volume of reports we have received this winter.’
It said it continues to hit its targets of repairing the most urgent potholes within 24 hours and all others that are considered serious within five to 20 working days.
Hertfordshire encourages road users to report potholes on a dedicated webpage https://www.hertfordshire.gov.uk/faultreporting/.
Picture shows Jet Patcher in action.
