The councillor in charge of Cheshire East’s roads insists their approach to repairing potholes is “the right way forward”.
Cllr Don Stockton believes engineers should be sent out to conduct structural repairs in a preventative way, rather than repair potholes as and when they need filling.
Cllr Stockton, Cheshire East Council cabinet member for environment, told a cabinet meeting that the council’s “evidence-led asset management” strategy will ensure taxpayers get the best value for money.
But his comments come after a winter of criticism from thousands of motorists who have faced daily journeys on pothole-plagued roads, including some of the busiest routes in the region.
And opposition councillors say the strategy sometimes goes against “common sense”.
Cllr Stockton said: “Our highway network is the largest and most visible asset of this council and it’s important that we manage it properly.
“It’s used daily by the majority of the public for commuting, business, social and leisure activities.
“The level of funding allocated to local highway authorities is dependent on us following and adopting an asset management approach.
“The council’s evidence-led asset management approach has been endorsed by the Department for Transport, with the council receiving the maximum level three incentivised funding element.”
Cheshire East set aside an additional £7 million in this year’s budget to help improve the borough’s road network.
It has also been allocated £1.75 million from the Government to spend on highways maintenance.
Cllr Glen Williams, deputy portfolio holder for highways and infrastructure, told the cabinet more than 200,000sq m of road had been treated in the past four weeks under the preventative approach.
Cllr Sam Corcoran, leader of the Labour opposition group, praised the highways team for carrying out work in his Sandbach ward – but he warned the council’s approach is not perfect.
“It’s highly sophisticated but in some cases it’s contrary to common sense,” Cllr Corcoran said.
“If you look out in Platt Avenue (Sandbach) before the winter I raised with highways the issue that this road is going to crack up. You could see it from the small cracks appearing.
“I got the answer back ‘but none of the potholes meet our criteria so we’re not going to do anything’.
“Over the winter, it disintegrated badly, and I’m sure the council spent quite a lot on repairing numerous potholes there.”
Cllr Corcoran also hit out at the use of ‘blobs of tarmac’ to patch up potholes in the winter months.
But leader Cllr Rachel Bailey told the cabinet that the council cannot make ‘A-star’ repairs in bad weather.
The cabinet agreed to continue using the same preventative approach for maintaining east Cheshire’s roads.
Yet more of the brand new tarmac ripped up on Sunday close to Morrisons Nantwich ,Who is paying for all this extra work which let’s face it should have done properly in the first place ,Fantastic British workmanship!!
It’s not as if tarmac is a new product & the contractor is learning.
Yet more money of Cheshire East’s residents wasted & no one will be sacked for such a terrible job .
Yep, peacock roundabout is an absolute disaster and needs to be a priority
Bodge after bodge after bodge seems to be Cheshire east policy, maybe Don Stockton should get out of his office and have a drive around, I suggest a 4×4.
Why was the cheerbrook and sainsburys roundabouts resurfaced when they were fine, yet the peacock, churches mansion and mini roundabout by the vets gets neglected, who’s decision was that.
Why do we have to come up with a fancy plan to do the most simplistic of jobs.
There is a hole in the road and the council are looking into it,the problem is that is all they are doing.
Preventative maintenance means repairing small problems before they become large ones,not the other way around.
Mix this with poor quality repairs and you just poor money into the hole.
We have had council workmen droping curbs by us to help visually impaired people cross the road and people with prams but they would not fix the large holes in the road which would cause them far more problems.
You could not make it up.
Ive reported bad damage on broughton rd and parkers rail bridge! Filling s keep coming out ! Common sense for an engineer to find out why? I agree A51 peacock to cheerbrook is a disgrace for a major highway!
When do you consider the Peacock roundabout and the two at Churches Mansion a priority? They’ve been wreaked for months.