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Council repairs 4,610 potholes since big freeze

1:00pm Sunday 7th March 2010 in News By Lloyd Vaughan

Council repairs 4,610 potholes since big freeze Council repairs 4,610 potholes since big freeze

Somerset County Council has filled 4,610 potholes since the severe weather which hit the region at the beginning of January, it revealed this week.

Figures for January and February showed the number of reported potholes had risen by 530% in those two months alone.

A council spokesman said the prolonged spell of freezing weather allowed more water and frost to get under the surface of the roads than usual, causing potholes to form.

Despite the huge increase, the council said it had nearly twice the usual number of gangs out filling holes, repairing a record number of potholes in February, including 809 in just one week.

In total, 65% of the potholes reported since January have already been repaired, it said.

Councillor Anthony Trollope-Bellew, Somerset County Council’s cabinet member for the environment, said: “The severe weather at the start of the year caused an unprecedented amount of damage, but our Highways teams are working extremely hard to put this right. “The county council is committed to making sure that our roads are safe and well maintained, and from April, an extra £500,000 will be added to our maintenance budget to help with this.”

Anyone who spots a pothole is asked to report it to the council by logging on to www.somerset.gov.uk or by ringing 08453-459155.

Comments(17)

mg-lloyd says...
3:11pm Sun 7 Mar 10

How many have they missed then?! The roads are awful!

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SomersetReader says...
4:41pm Sun 7 Mar 10

On Eastwick Road in Taunton they repaired one pothole, then came back the following day to repair another which was less than 12 inches from the original. Then a week later came back to repair another which was about 24inches from the original. What a waste of time and effort. Thats why the number of repaired pot holes is high. If you try to report a pot hole through the Somerset County Council web site the link doesn't work.

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souwesterly says...
5:29pm Sun 7 Mar 10

And parts of Dorchester Road are so bad that they need resurfacing completely.
There are already patches on patches on patches........
I wish they'd sack the man with the spray paint and just send teams out with instructions to "just start at one end and keep going."
Too much bureaucracy - not enough work.

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nikkij1969 says...
6:34pm Sun 7 Mar 10

I agree "souwesterly" i've seen the bloke with the spray can twice on Dorchester Road spraying around the same holes!! But havn't seen any of the holes filled yet.

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Outraged of Oake says...
8:22pm Sun 7 Mar 10

Well they certainly haven't been to Oake. The last time they did any road repairs here they simply sprayed the roads then threw some loose chip onto it. It looked very nice but clearly it wasn't up to much.

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souwesterly says...
10:17pm Sun 7 Mar 10

I remember that - that was back when I had my old Ford Cortina - got all tarred up!

Nah - joking apart - you've no hope of seeing so much as the man with the spray can, let alone any tar for at least a few months.....

Anyway, out in the country, I thought you either used the holes as cattle troughs or filled them with mud and planted tatties in them!!.

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Micra says...
2:13pm Mon 8 Mar 10

As I said several weeks ago on the subject of Silk Mills lights , I commented on the abyssmal repair of the piece of tarmac under the motorway. Nothing has changed the crap road surface remains. Perhaps we motorist/Cyclists dont understand what it is the council is trying to achieve other than continuation of this councils approach to slow traffic down as part of traffic calming measures.. meanwhile having been reduced to riding a push bike that now has a clunk from damaged bearings -oh and a new saddle ..

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tauntonborn says...
4:58pm Mon 8 Mar 10

And about double that still left to deal with. Comeytrowe lane has some beauties, as does the road through norton fitzwarren.

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DonSeer says...
2:36pm Tue 9 Mar 10

"As I said several weeks ago on the subject of Silk Mills lights , I commented on the abyssmal repair of the piece of tarmac under the motorway. Nothing has changed the crap road surface remains."

oh god yes! they fixed one part and there is still another part that is god awfull...

oh and on the subject.. the new park n ride looks to be shaping up to be another traffic light fetishists dream

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creecher says...
3:13pm Tue 9 Mar 10

Wouldn't be nice if they could sack the guy with the spray paint and just send the guys out each day to drive around a specific area and fill in the hole that are reported there and any other ones they find then the next day move on, but i suppose that would lose jobs for the boys. I agree with the comment about the lights on the new park and ride and am betting someone at SCC is getting kick back of Siemens for the lights.

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souwesterly says...
7:32pm Tue 9 Mar 10

Creecher - see my comment @5:29pm Sun 7 Mar 10
.
Whacha mean....SOMEONE??
They all are - corporate hospitality they call it.
.
Been there.........

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creecher says...
7:58pm Tue 9 Mar 10

i was just being conservative with my suggestion but i agree with you even though they all say they are in it for the good o the community.
ha.ha

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blackmasquerade says...
9:41pm Tue 9 Mar 10

Yep, I hit the one in Comeytrowe Lane a few months back, completely shredding my front tyre. Reported it at the time but SCC not interested.

I've also just hit a particularly deep one in Ladymead Rd and just waiting for the morning to see what effect that has had.

If SCC's Highways Dept put as much effort into dealing with potholes as it does installing totally unneccessary traffic signals that serve only to create gridlock and congestion then there wouldn't be a problem but sadly not.

On that subject, I've travelled along Staplegrove Rd on 4 separate occasions today and each time I've had to stop at those **** lights for absolutely no reason. At least 1 of these times the lights changed twice as I approached.

It's about time someone exposed SCC Highways Dept for what they really are. Rise up you motorists of Taunton! Any party prepared to address this utterly ridiculous situation would get my vote, for I'm getting seriously p ****d off with this.

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gilesy25 says...
7:59am Thu 11 Mar 10

4610 potholes filled since the snow is good going, we can't expect miracles. Perhaps if these so called eco cars paid the same rate of car tax as a standard car, then more money would be in the kitty to fill more potholes.

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souwesterly says...
10:15am Thu 11 Mar 10

It strikes me that if SCC had been busy last year and filled in as many holes as they could, then there wouldn't have been so many to fill this year......despite the weather.

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gilesy25 says...
10:31am Thu 11 Mar 10

i would prefer to see poor roads being resurfaced properley, filling potholes will only last until the next big freeze

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somersetboy says...
8:25pm Thu 11 Mar 10

it is the quality of the tarmac used in taunton, in places like scotland potholes are rare because they use a better type of tarmac, in scotland they have big freezes evry year

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