Nigel Evans, MP for the Ribble Valley, has welcomed extra funding from the Government to combat pothole damage caused by recent storm damage. The Secretary of State for Transport, Chris Grayling, last week announced that Lancashire will benefit from a £2.4m chunk of a £100m discretionary fund to assist the areas worst-affected by the bad weather – only five council areas will get more.
This fund is on top of the record £6 billion the government is providing local authorities between 2015 and 2021 to maintain and improve their roads, including the £75m ‘Pothole Action Fund’ declared this year. It is estimated this most recent announcement will fill two million potholes across the UK.
Speaking from the Ribble Valley, Mr Evans said:
“As we all know, Lancashire is suffering from a pothole epidemic of epic proportion. I am ecstatic to see the Government’s most recent announcement reflect this, with Lancashire receiving a sizable chunk of the discretionary fund.”
The announcement comes after Mr Evans contacted Chris Grayling to ask for the Government to provide Lancashire County Council with additional money to address the problems presented by the bombardment of bad weather in March.
Mr Evans continued:
“I am confident that the Ribble Valley, and Lancashire as a whole, will start seeing a noticeable improvement in the state of our roads. Lancashire County Council have invested heavily in six liquid patching machines which have the potential to repair 60 potholes every day. It is brilliant to see Cllr Geoff Driver invest heavily in road maintenance after years of neglect by the previous administration.”
Liquid patching machines have been in use in the USA for a number of years, where they are known as ‘Pothole Killers’ due to their efficiency eradicating the craters - filling potholes in approximately 30 times the speed as traditional methods.
While the council's mobile two-man pothole repair teams continue to fix individual defects reported by highway inspectors and members of the public, the spray injection machines are being used in a preventative way to 'find and fix' potholes on rural roads where most problems are occurring.
The county council has budgeted £23m for maintenance to Lancashire's road surfaces in 2018/19, with around £10m of this set aside to fix potholes and carry out minor repairs, such as spray injection patching.