A councillor has hit out after council workers took just a minute to complete a pothole repair. A viral video from a north Nottinghamshire town appears to show two workers throwing in a bag of instant road repair before packing the gaping hole out in a matter of seconds.
Councillor David Martin, who represents Selston for the Ashfield Independents, claimed Nottinghamshire County Council was "slipping into its bad habits yet again". The Conservative-led county council had promised more permanent fixes to potholes across Nottinghamshire following a much-requested review.
Following the review, the council pledged £15m towards better and more permanent road repairs, which included using fewer quick-fixes. The council had, however, stated it would not be a "magic bullet", with repair costs estimated in the region of at least £150m.
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Councillor Martin says they had been invited to the Bilsthorpe Depot last year as part of the highway’s review, where councillors were shown the correct procedure for repairing a pothole. He says repairs took at least five minutes.
The viral video, however, shows two workers taking, from the moment one inspects the damaged road surface to the moment he leaves for the van, just over one minute. The CCTV footage was taken in a residential street in Sutton-in-Ashfield, where roads have before been criticised.
The Via East Midlands workers then take a picture of the repair and sit in their van for a number of minutes before leaving. Councillor Martin says: "Whilst I acknowledge that the use of the dreaded ViaFix has gone down it’s clear that it’s still being used far too much. The county council are responsible for all pot-hole repairs and it’s clear that an investigation is needed into this video nasty.
"As part of the Highway’s Review that the Independents pressured the county council to undertake we saw a demonstration in Bilsthorpe into how a pot-hole should be repaired. It’s clear that this has not been followed at all and the County Council needs to get a grip."
Responding to the concerns councillor Mike Adams, Deputy Cabinet Member for Transport and Environment at Nottinghamshire County Council, told Nottinghamshire Live: “As a result of our cross-party Highways Services Review, Nottinghamshire County Council has invested an extra £12 million into repairing our roads. This investment has included doubling the number of highways teams delivering large-scale permanent repairs, and these teams are already making progress, with the equivalent of 20 miles of continuous road estimated to be re-surfaced during this year.
“Our highways contractor, Via East Midlands, do have to carry out emergency repairs to some potholes as soon as they are reported, as seen in this video. The purpose is to make the road safe until we can programme the more extensive repairs I’ve just described. The road surface in the video was prepared properly for this repair and the pothole was filled correctly, but the material should have been compacted more thoroughly at the end of the process. The operatives in question will receive additional training to ensure this is done correctly in future.”
"For the record, it was the Conservative administration in control of Nottinghamshire County Council who instigated the Highways Services Review, although Councillor Martin was a helpful and constructive participant in the process. The Via workforce has been really motivated in delivering our new Highways Improvement Plan, and if Councillor Martin had raised this particular incident with a senior highways officer it could have been resolved very quickly.”
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