Permanent repairs being made to potholes

June 27, 2023

Southend-on-Sea City Council is carrying out better, permanent repairs to potholes that need fixing in 2023/24.

The improvement to the process – where all potholes that have reached or exceed ‘investigatory level’ following an inspection will be permanently repaired - follows feedback from residents. This is opposed to the previous process, which mainly saw temporary filling and patching to remove the immediate risk but often led to further repairs being needed.

The only exception will be on key routes such as the A127 where a temporary fix will be carried out within 24 hours to reduce the risk, ahead of a permanent repair.

Additionally, where a pothole appears in a section of road, in which the surrounding area also needs repair, the council will look to do small scale patching to the whole area where possible.

Permanent repairs tend to take longer to organise and complete, and therefore signage will be used on roads to tell users about any temporary disruption and the work taking place.

Cllr Kevin Buck, cabinet member for transport, highways and parking, said: “It was one of my key objectives as the new Cabinet member to see improvements in pothole repairs, so am very pleased to see this policy being enacted so quickly by the highways team. It is really important to continue with efforts to improve our services and city’s roads. Our highways team and contractor work extremely hard to fix potholes and we offer one of the best response times in the eastern region to investigate reports at just 24 hours for all roads.

“We know that potholes are a major area of concern for local drivers, and it is therefore good to see the desire to improve further and take on board feedback from residents, who have told us they want to see more permanent repairs taking place, as opposed to temporary fixes that sometimes don’t last very long.

“I hope that the public will welcome this change in approach as we make further safety improvements to our roads and further reduce the number of potholes across the City.”

Residents and businesses should continue to report potholes via MySouthend to enable the highways team to attend the area for investigation within 24 hours or next working day. Following the investigation, a subsequent repair would be actioned based on the assessed level of risk.