It is very welcome to see spells of sunshine this week and the days becoming longer – it feels like we are starting to emerge now from another cold and very wet winter.
Unfortunately, as is the case every year around this time, the winter weather has taken a severe toll on the roads causing many new defects to open up in all parts of the county. This is a national problem that is being exacerbated by wetter but still very cold winters. It is because rain gets into tiny cracks in the road then freezes, with the expanded frozen water then breaking up the surface in places. We are seeing some deep potholes and other instances where layers of tarmac peels away.
In Buckinghamshire, it’s made even worse by the scores of HGV vehicles from the HS2 and East West Rail construction sites placing even more pressure on our local roads.
I want to reassure Bucks Herald readers that we are fully aware of the damage and have put extra resource into fixing it. Our approach to road repairs depends on the time of year. During the colder months, when full repairs won’t hold and would therefore be a waste of money, we operate on a ‘reactive, safety first’ basis, with teams ready to assess and respond to reports of defects. We have 16 such teams out now fixing potholes and other defects.
When we finally get fully into spring and past the gritting season that’s when our large-scale repairs and improvements programme gets fully underway. This is when we do permanent repairs and more major resurfacing works, because the better weather means the repairs will last longer and have a better chance of ‘future-proofing’ the road.
Over the past four years we have spent over £100m on road resurfacing and repairs. Many hundreds of roads have been resurfaced and over 35,000 potholes filled in the past year alone. I want to continue to build on this progress so I’m really pleased that the full council agreed last week to our proposal to invest a record £120 million in even more road resurfacing and repairs over the next four years.
We are also looking at new ways and new technologies to improve how we do things, such as trialling a new ‘thermal repair’ technique to repair potholes.
In the meantime, please continue to report defects using the council’s website and take care when driving, particularly in wet and dark conditions when potholes may not be visible. Our teams are our responding and we will do our utmost to get around to them all as quickly as we can.