A ‘revolutionary’ pothole fixer could be brought in to help solve Newcastle’s £184m road repair crisis.
City transport bosses have revealed that they will likely hire out an innovative JCB machine which was launched last year in a bid to bring the UK’s crumbling roads back up to standard.
It is claimed that the Pothole Pro can complete a repair in less than eight minutes, four times quicker than standard fixes, and at half the cost.
Go here for the very latest live traffic and travel news and North East updates
And Geordies fed up with the “horrendous” state of some routes in Newcastle could soon see it deployed more often on the city’s streets.
Newcastle City Council officials confirmed on Thursday that, despite opting against buying their own Pothole Pro after a trial, they are planning to take one on loan from neighbouring Northumberland County Council.
More than 15,000 potholes were found in Newcastle last year and the city has a road and pavement maintenance backlog totalling £184m.
That situation is getting worse, with around £10m needed each year just to keep the highways network in its current state but the council only spending around half of that amid drops in Government funding.
Addressing the problem in front of councillors on Thursday, council engineering consultancy services manager Pamela Holmes said: “We have trialled the JCB Pothole Pro which was on The One Show, we have looked at that. Whilst that had merits it is quite intensive to resource, so we thought it was not something we could invest in – but we will look to hire that.
“We are looking at different methods of addressing potholes but what we want to get to is a permanent solution, a permanent repair. We want the roads resurfaced, that is our ultimate aim. "
The Pothole Pro, described as "revolutionary" by its manufacturer, has a top speed to 25mph to allow it to move quicker between problem spots and can cut a defect, crop its edges and clean the hole with one machine – mechanising jobs traditionally done by teams of engineers.
Liberal Democrat councillor Wendy Taylor told a meeting of the local authority’s overview and scrutiny committee that the road crisis has “got to be dealt with” by the council and that she could not see any Government stumping up the cash needed.
The Dene and South Gosforth representative, whose calls for the council to launch a five-year investment surge in road repairs were rejected by Labour earlier this month, added: “I don’t understand how it is cost effective to mend a pothole that then breaks down two or three months later, particularly at this time of year.
“Some of the roads in my ward are just horrendous with patches and broken potholes around them.
“It just doesn’t make a lot of sense to me that that is a way of tackling things.”
Graham Grant, the council’s head of transport, said: “We do keep an eye on concerning what amount of funding we would need to invest in the asset. We keep a watching brief to determine whether there is anything we can do.
“At this moment in time we are still paying out of our annual budget some money for previous financing agreements.
“It is not that we are against doing it. But when we compare ourselves to other local authorities that have done that, our roads are in a similar condition. The only thing that is going to address this issue in the longer term is a long-term funding settlement from Government.”
