Repairs to nearly 10,000 Gloucestershire potholes in just three months

“Toecutter - That is truly dreadful. I wonder what Glos Highways would have to say about it, in defence? Perhaps TiG will on Monday morning be phoning them for comment... No, silly me, they won't.

Cassandra2010 - yes, I remember those sort of figures being bounded about a couple of years ago. I wonder if the numbers could ever be substantiated (i.e. did they really fix all 90,000 in the year?). And of the 10,000 recent pothole repairs, I wonder how many were also "repaired" within the 90,000 in 2010? And again in 2011, and then again last year...?

Glos Highways and potholes has long since been beyond a joke. The cost to the Council Tax payer must be horrendous year-on-year, especially as a percentage of each year's works will be re-doing works from the previous year, and previous more-recent works too (see Toecutter's comment). The A38 southbound after the Odessa traffic lights is a classic - line of bomb craters down the seam between the two strips of tarmac - constantly "filled" with lose material, which lasts until the next frost / heavy rain, and/or the first time a large vehicle runs over the patch.

Seems to me that Glos Highways simply don't care, or simply are not fit for purpose, or possibly both. They have been rightly slaughtered in the local media for years in regards to their efforts in repairing the roads, but they fail to get any better in doing simple repair jobs that last any time at all (again, see Toecutter's comment).

Who do we complain to, to get them to either do a proper job (which seems to be beyond them), or otherwise get them banned from doing any repair work, in favour of another entity (who?) doing a better job (couldn't do it any worse)...???”

“Three years ago in Feb 2010 Glos Highways said that they were to repair 90 000 potholes. By August that year they had reported that 66 000 had been fixed, so presumably they did reach their target. Now they report that 10 000 have been fixed in the past three months.
Now, I have been watching out on some of the worst potholes for the last two years and they still haven't been fixed. So, either the 100 000 + that have been addressed were worse than the ones I monitor (in which case they were really bad), or the Council are not prioritising the repairs properly. Talk about wasting money! I wonder how much the 30 min fix reported by Toecutter cost?”

“One pothole, by the bridge on Hatherly Lane, is breaking up as I type. This will be need a repair for the 7th time in 4 months (yes, sad I know, but I have been monitoring it). The best repair was carried out at approx 09.00 one morning and the tarmac was lifting by 09.30 !!”

“If the roads were properly surfaced in the first place then they wouldnt have got into that state. I was in Germany last week and the roads are in a better condition over there, maybe we should learn a thing or two from the Germans.”

“What hope can there be when Gloucestershire Highways appear powerless to even keep our 'A' roads pothole free? The A417 near Corse, between Worcester Road and Oridge Street, has remained severely potholed for years. Some of these potholes are visible on Google Street view (filmed 2 – 3 years ago?) and, despite some short-lived "efforts" at plugging, the situation has now deteriorated to the point where driving in a northbound direction, while avoiding blow-outs, demands playing slalom in the teeth of oncoming traffic!

It has reached the stage where I now avoid this stretch of road altogether at night and it can only be a matter of time before yet another fatal accident occurs at what is already something of an accident blackspot.”

“One spot they need to look at is around the gullys adjacent to the Smiths traffic lights near Cleeve. There's a couple that have been bad for many months (between the garden centre and the lights) - they now have cones by them (as of last Sunday) to divert traffic around them. Instead of putting a cone by them, why not fix them...!!!

Or perhaps they have now been done (or will be in the next few days), in time for the NH Festival...”

“Total apathy by Glos Highways.Whilst out walking,I noticed a van driving slowly,the driver got out and was using an aerosol paint to mark holes in the road.I pointed out to him that there was a drain completely blocked with debris causing the water to run down the road and that this was the cause of the pot holes.So the first Job would be to clean the drain.He stated that it was not his department.Needless to say the holes have been filled but the drain is still blocked!!!!”

“...and how many have already broken up again within 3 months of being fixed in Oct / Nov?”

“How many were repeated repairs where the job hadn't been done well previously?”