Wakefield Council defends potholes record and explains why 'patch' jobs are done on roads

Wakefield Council has defended its record on potholes, insisting it has to make a small pot of money "stretch as far as it can".
Potholes are a common bugbear for drivers.Potholes are a common bugbear for drivers.
Potholes are a common bugbear for drivers.

Bumps in the road are among drivers' biggest bugbears, with more than half the country's motorists claiming their car's been damaged by potholes.

In Wakefield, the council has warned that the recent snowy weather may have made road surfaces worse.

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But the local authority has explained that it cannot always resurface damaged roads in their entirety with the cash they have available.

Snowy and icy weather can have a detrimental impact on road surfaces in the long-term.Snowy and icy weather can have a detrimental impact on road surfaces in the long-term.
Snowy and icy weather can have a detrimental impact on road surfaces in the long-term.

Instead, patchwork jobs, where the holes themselves are filled in with tar, are a common sight.

Speaking on a live Q&A session on Facebook on Monday, the council's Cabinet member for highways, Matthew Morley, said: "Roads are underfunded nationally by the government.

"They don't put the money into roads as they should. They've got a billion on billion pound backlog and they're not tackling it.

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"As a council though, we've stepped up. We've put £50m of our funding in, which is double what we get from the Department of Transport.

Coun Matthew Morley said the council had to "stretch" a limited amount of cash as far as possible.Coun Matthew Morley said the council had to "stretch" a limited amount of cash as far as possible.
Coun Matthew Morley said the council had to "stretch" a limited amount of cash as far as possible.

"We've got to try to make that stretch as far as we can across the whole of the district."

Asked by a member of the public why roads are often given "surface dressing", Coun Morley replied: "The reason why we sometimes do a treatment of a road rather than put a whole brand new road in is it prolongs the life of that road.

"We'll go down to a road and we'll patch the series of potholes. We'll put a resin over the top and that can prolong the life of a road by about 20 years.

"We've improved our roads significantly by doing that."

Potholes can be reported to Wakefield Council here

Local Democracy Reporting Service