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Potholes being zapped in £5m bid to repair Staffordshire roads - WATCH

More than 11,000 extra potholes will be filled across Staffordshire this year – following a £5 million investment from the county council.

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This is on top of the county council’s annual £23.5m roads budget and the 20,000 potholes repaired in a typical year.

WATCH the potholes being zapped

The £5m investment will see:

  • Four pothole ‘zapping’ machines working alongside crews on the pothole, surface dressing and routine maintenance. These machines help speed up repairs by blowing debris, priming the road and filling the potholes.

  • A dozen additional patching crews.

  • Around 50,000 sq m of additional pothole patching, which equates to around 11,000 repairs on top of the 20,000 in a typical year.

  • Drainage improvement works.

Helen Fisher, cabinet support member for highways and transport, said the extra investment will help tackle the most urgent repairs across the county.

She said: “A bad winter really does takes its toll on the roads and although we still had snow until a few weeks ago we are determined to get back on the front foot in tackling repairs.

Highways worker Arny Hackett with Councillor Helen Fisher

“In a county as huge as Staffordshire we do have to prioritise repairs on our busiest roads where they pose the biggest risk to members of the public and this further investment on top of the extra £5m last year will help us rise to the challenge.

“Good roads are important to the council, to the economy and to our communities.”

People can go online or download the mystaffsapp to report a pothole.

A spokesman said: “The very urgent potholes are normally fixed within 24 hours and are classed as category one. Other urgent category two potholes are tackled in seven days where possible. Category three repairs, which are often on little used very rural roads, are addressed once the more urgent repairs are carried out.”