A motorist has called on council workers to improve the way they repair roads after potholes near his home opened up nine months after they were filled.

Mr Chris Price, of Morton, criticised Via, which manages roads on behalf of Nottinghamshire County Council, after potholes opened up on New Road, Fiskerton.

Via said its priority was to keep the county’s highways network safe for road users.

Mr Price said potholes frequently appeared on New Road — a route he uses daily.

He said they were last repaired in May last year.

“The way they were repaired was exceptionally poor,” he said.

“You can even still see the yellow markings they used last time. The reason this is costing them so much money is because the way they are filling in the potholes is so poor.

“There is no point filling in potholes so half-heartedly if they are going to just open up again. They are just filling them in and going.”youtube

Mr Price said workers used to cut out a section of the road, fill it in with asphalt and compress it with a steamroller.

He demonstrated how poor the last repair job was by moving the freshly-laid asphalt with a stick. He posted a video of this on Twitter.

Suzanne Heydon, head of network management at Via East Midlands, said: “Our priority is keeping the Nottinghamshire highway network safe for road users.

“When potholes reach our investigatory levels, they are flagged by our inspectors to make repairs as necessary.

“The repairs on New Road, Morton, have been made using Viafix, a cold asphalt material that can be poured directly into holes with no preparation — including directly into water.

“It allows us to quickly repair potholes and is ideally suited to repairs in winter conditions.

“The material is simply poured into the hole and vehicles traveling over the repair will compact the material down.

“The repair quickly cures into place and can receive traffic immediately. These repairs have been proven to be extremely durable with a low failure rate.

“However, when the road surface is deteriorating, we can occasionally see further failures directly adjacent to the previous repairs.”

Suzanne Heydon said the national average cost for a pothole repair was £53 and that varied depending on the nature of the hole.

“However, with over 70,000 potholes repaired in the county in 2017, our resources require us to use a range of repair methods to keep our roads safe,” she said.

“Nottinghamshire County Council has recently announced a £20m investment over four years, predominantly focused on residential roads and the unclassified network, which have not received as much investment over recent years.”

Counting the cost of damage to vehicles

More than £18,000 in compensation was paid to motorists by Nottinghamshire County Council over the last five years because of damage caused by potholes located in the Newark and Sherwood district.

The figures, released after a Freedom Of Information request by the Advertiser, showed the most compensation was paid in 2012-13 — £6,591. For the last year that figures are available (2016-17) the council paid £2,289.

It also paid smaller sums for other reasons, including defective street furniture/ironworks and ford/surface water.

Of the 342 claims in total made to the county council, it accepted liability in 75 of them.