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Thousands paid out to motorists after pothole damage

Highways bosses in Wolverhampton have paid out more than £4,800 in compensation to motorists whose vehicles were damaged by potholes on the city’s roads this year.

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Thousands of pounds have been paid out in compensation to drivers

Since the beginning of January the council has dealt with upwards of 235 complaints about potholes on the city’s roads.

The reports of holes in highways across the city have been made by members of the public and also the council’s own road inspectors.

The city’s revenue budget for highway maintenance repairs for 2018/19 is £1,007,860, although the final expenditure on this won’t be known until the end of the year.

Expenditure for the previous two years was £954,925 for 2017-18 and £1,131,638 in 2016-17.

Earlier compensation paid out for damage caused to vehicles by Wolverhampton City Council was £5,287 in 2017-18 and £3,547 in 2016-17.

Councillor Steve Evans (Lab. Fallings Park), the council’s Cabinet Member for City Environment, said: “In Wolverhampton, we maintain 450 miles of road throughout the city and carry out repairs on a priority basis.

“Last year we invested in the services of a ‘velocity patcher’ to repair potholes and road damage to improve uneven road surfaces more efficiently.

“In addition to our on-going resurfacing programme, we agreed at Cabinet Resources on Tuesday March 5 to surface treat – microasphalt – 26 roads across the city.

“This work will start in the next few weeks and will see over a million pounds of investment put into our road infrastructure. We also agreed to a full resurface of Trysull Road which will also start imminently.

“Latest estimates suggest that nationally it would take over £9 billion to return UK roads back to a reasonable standard.

“Obviously, there isn’t anywhere near that sort of money available, but we do a great job of prioritising and getting the most out of the finances we have.

“We are proud to be responsive and forward thinking in repairing potholes and we aim to maintain that approach.”

An annual report summarising the number of potholes reported and repaired each year is published by the council, providing a detailed breakdown of figures for each month.

By George Makin

Local Democracy Reporter

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