£9.1 million pothole repair schemes announced

A £9.1 million programme to restore some of the roads damaged during the wettest winter on record has been announced by Devon County Council.

The County Council has developed a programme of almost 400 repair schemes, using the Pothole Repair Funding that Devon received from central Government, to improve the surface or drainage resilience of more than 80 miles (129 km) of roads in the county.

This is in addition to repair work which started in Devon in June using the £7 million Severe Weather Recovery funding, in response to the damage caused over the winter months to the county’s 8,000 miles of roads, which is the biggest highway network of any local authority in the country.

Altogether, the £16 million of additional funding Devon has been awarded from Government will repair around 120 miles (193km) of roads.

The schedule of work has been drawn up and prioritised with the help of local county councillors.

Around 51,000 potholes have been filled so far in Devon in 2014 and more will be repaired as part of this latest repair work. However, the repairs will also focus on surfacing, patching, crack sealing and drainage improvements.

Councillor Stuart Hughes, Devon County Council Cabinet Member for Highway Management and Flood Prevention, said: “This additional funding from Government is providing us with a comprehensive programme to not only repair our roads but also protect them. As well as targeting pothole repairs we will also be carrying out more extensive surfacing and drainage work in order to improve the resilience of our highway network. We are already working on some of the schemes earmarked with the Severe Weather Recovery funding. Although the £16 million we received from Government will be made to go a long way, it won’t solve all of our problems overnight, and as we sustained around £24 million worth of damage last winter alone, it unfortunately won’t repair everywhere that suffered at the hands of the weather.”

Among the roads which will be included in the latest programme of work are A358 Musbury Road, Axminster; B3178 Rolle Street, Exmouth; A375 Sidford Road, Sidmouth; Fore Street, Exeter; Topsham High Street; B3181 Waterloo Cross to Birdswell, Uffculme; A396 Great Western Way roundabout, Tiverton; A399 Hillsborough Road Ilfracombe; Station Road roundabout, Barnstaple; A379 North Embankment, Dartmouth; A381  Western Bypass, Totnes; A379 Exeter Road, Dawlish; A381 Station Road, Newton Abbot; A386 Kingsley Road, Bideford; Bedford Street, Bere Alston; Castle Road, Okehampton; A386 New Road, Torrington; and Abbey Rise, Tavistock.

The work has to be completed by next March.

Devon’s road network needs around £64 million of investment a year to maintain its current condition.

The County Council is also still dealing with the legacy of the remaining repairs from the £18 million of damage caused by the storms of 2012/13, which are being funded from capital allocations over the next few years.