Pothole Repairs: Three Steps to Road Rescue

We are all aware of the unprecedented damage the severe winter weather has had on roads across the UK.

Repairing roads is a top priority for Gloucestershire County Council, which is why we have launched a campaign called ‘Operation Road Rescue’. I am writing to you directly to share more detail about our three pronged attack on road repairs:

1.    Worst First
We are fixing the worst potholes with highest risk to safety first, followed by lower risk potholes. This might mean we only fill the worst potholes on a road now, leaving others for later. Please be patient as we go about our job of fixing the worst first. Teams are working around the clock as weather and conditions allow.

2.    Patch
Where roads have larger areas of damage we will send in bigger teams with more machinery and material to carry out ‘patching’. £1.2 million of patching work is already in progress and extra patching gangs have been sent to our three highway areas.

3.    Resurface
Where stretches of road are more seriously damaged we will look to resurface them. We are reviewing our resurfacing programme to ensure the highest damaged roads are resurfaced as a priority.

An emergency assessment of roads underpins our three stage road rescue programme. This inspection is focused on main roads and busy town centre walkways first then rural and residential roads. We are delivering the programme on the ground by temporarily moving staff to pothole repair and suspending minor works to concentrate on fixing roads.

Please be reassured that our highway teams are working as quickly and efficiently as possible, fixing potholes on a worst first basis. We share people’s frustrations, but repairing this amount of damage will take time to complete so please be patient and drive with care and caution.

For more information on our road rescue programme please visit www.gloucestershire.gov.uk/roadrescue

Finally, we will shortly be sending out copies of ‘Road Rescue Operation’ posters to all town and parish councils. We would be grateful if you would place these posters on your community notice boards to help us inform Gloucestershire residents what we are doing to repair our roads.

Yours sincerely

Stan Waddington
Cabinet Member – Environment