Quality of pothole repair

[kindai]

Random question, does anyone know if a repair made to a road by the council has a requirement to "last" for a certain time frame?

Reason being there is a patch of road nearby, which has had no less than 8 repairs on the same section in the last 18 months (FOI request).

Every time the job is done to a frankly appalling level, the last repair done weeks ago is already coming apart, at least when compared to the level of repair contractors like BT have to do (they also have to warrant the work for 2 years) but I can't find anything about the quality or durability of repair for councils.

Ta!

 

[Kuros]

I don't think there's any legal requirement, no. It must be costing the council a fortune though if it's going that quickly..

Send an email to whoever is in charge of the roads, (not always local council, sometimes district), it can't hurt.

 

[p1RATE]

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/3995/pothole-review.pdf

7.4 As described in Section 5 each local highway authority will have its own policy for highway maintenance, including its approach to potholes. There is, however, no common guidance or specification available on how to deliver ‘right first time’ pothole repairs. Well-maintained Highways (Ref. 4) does not provide advice on how to carry out repairs.

 

[Rroff]

Seems to be the way these days - they used to do a proper job here and it would last 10 years or something - now they do a probably cheap and definitely nasty job and probably spend waaay more money in total constantly repairing it every couple of years or more often.

 

[umkay]

Seems to be the way these days - they used to do a proper job here and it would last 10 years or something - now they do a probably cheap and definitely nasty job and probably spend waaay more money in total constantly repairing it every couple of years or more often.

I see them now literally just fill it with some loose tarmac and pat it down with a spade. They need to cut out the hole (stop cracks from propagating), fill it and compress it properly before sealing the edges. There was a bloke not too long ago who started potting plants in them ...

 

[kindai]

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/3995/pothole-review.pdf

Thank you, I read that but missed the part you quoted.

The councils reply is their policy is as set out in "Well-maintained Highways".

 

[Siliconslave]

setup shifty pothole repair company
give 20% of profit to whoever selects contractors for the government
pay someone to go round reporting all the current potholes
do a really shoddy job

rinse and repeat

 

[Diddums]

It's almost like the council know people in the asphalting industry and are getting backhanders from them.

 

[adolf hamster]

at least they're repairing them....

 

[tom_e]

There's so many on my commute that they just cold fill every couple of months, I learnt very quickly to just avoid them whether they've been fixed or not because they'd be fine one day and all broken up again the next.

It's a pointless exercise but means they can tick their paperwork.

 

[p1RATE]

at least they're repairing them....

Tbf if you report them they tend to get dealt with. Although I'm sure there are some areas that are more of a priority than others and i bet there is more of a backlog over winter.

 

[dacads]

at least they're repairing them....

Yeah but like most things the funding has gone to pot :S

 

[Greebo]

It's almost like the council know people in the asphalting industry and are getting backhanders from them.

You kidding me? We used to do work for the local council but once the rate of pay became less than what we paid our employees never mind overheads and profit then we stopped doing pothole repairs.

Last tender I saw worked out that you were getting £13p/h to fill potholes.

We pay our men £10.50 p/h plus NI, holidays, sickness etc so just no point doing them anymore.

Clearly the people getting the contracts to repair them will be using the cheapest eg non skilled labour and the cheapest components to do them.

The last pot holing contract we did was for the the Tour the France and despite it been worth £250k we lost money on it as the council insisted on traffic lights but didn't include that in the tender process.

 

[kindai]

You kidding me? We used to do work for the local council but once the rate of pay became less than what we paid our employees never mind overheads and profit then we stopped doing pothole repairs.

Last tender I saw worked out that you were getting £13p/h to fill potholes.

We pay our men £10.50 p/h plus NI, holidays, sickness etc so just no point doing them anymore.

Clearly the people getting the contracts to repair them will be using the cheapest eg non skilled labour and the cheapest components to do them.

The last pot holing contract we did was for the the Tour the France and despite it been worth £250k we lost money on it as the council insisted on traffic lights but didn't include that in the tender process.

Greebo, do you mind if I trust you for some information?

Thanks

 

[Greebo]

Greebo, do you mind if I trust you for some information?

Thanks

No problems of course.

 

[Dis86]

Round here all they do is fill them with rubble/hardcore and compact it.

 

[sparkymark75]

The speed bumps they like to put everywhere these days never seem to breakup or deteriorate!

 

[Nasher]

They use the cheapest materials and labour possible, like always happens when something gets outsourced. The roads are rubbish because they are now maintained by contractors after profit, not the council who are only there to provide a service.

 

[Dr Who]

There is no proper long lasting pothole repair in some cases. Once the foundation is damaged, you are just firefighting until you can rip up the road and do a proper job.

One road in Bath has so many potholes because the foundation is collapsing that it is going to be closed for 20 weeks while they rip the whole road up and reinforce the foundations underneath.

Even good quality tarmac in a pothole that gets hit on a daily basis soon breaks up, especially in winter where water ingress and ice expansion weakens it quickly.

 

[Nasher]

Thing is they re-laid the main road outside where I work. The tarmac they used was AWFUL (very rough and noisy), worse than the old stuff and within a year potholes were already opening up again.