The pothole repair that lasted 9 days

[Hammersia]

Repaired pothole broke up and crumbled just nine DAYS after it was fixed amid mounting fury at Britain's 'crater crisis'
Pete Munro, 49, took four comparison photos over nine days that show the pothole completely deteriorating

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13158761/...

However thank goodness East Sussex council are all over it:

"A spokesperson for East Sussex County Council's highways department said: 'We are aware of the failed repair on Moor Lane, which was identified through our regular quality inspections.

'Whilst it is regrettable that this pothole repair has failed, we have instructed our contractor to return and carry out a more substantial repair.'"

[Eric Mc]

At no extra cost to the Counbcil Tax payer I should hope.

[Hammersia]

Doubt there is anything unusual about this sort of repair standard, loads of streets near me have had repairs failing after a month or two.

I imagine there's a lot of backhanders going on for favored contractors, and zero QA - I blame the councils 100%

[Previous]

Eric Mc said:

At no extra cost to the Counbcil Tax payer I should hope.

Not a chance.

Even if this one is repaired 'free of charge' there'll be hundreds filled and failed elsewhere, for which the contractor will be paid (and repaid).

[PhillipM]

All the repairs here these days are "Throw a shovel of tarmac off the back of a van in the hole, and then drive over it on the way out to compact it" - literally a 2 minute job, they don't care if it needs doing again a month later, the council will pay for it again, because the only thing they look for is the lowest bidder and there's no accountability for QA.

[FourWheelDrift]

Am I right in thinking to properly repair a hole (after filling it in and compacting the material down) the old tarmac surrounding the hole should be heated to melting point to enable a better seal with the new tarmac on the patch? I can't be that hot to work as they do melt in hot summers.

[Earthdweller]

I have a place out in the west of Ireland and there are hardly any potholes and considering the weather and the roads it’s really surprising

What I do find is that if any appear or start to appear they are fixed almost immediately

Locally if you a come across one you can ring the local councillor who will arrange a fix

We had one outside our place a couple of years ago and it was really fascinating to see it being fixed

One guy turned up in a small tanker type truck with a big arm on the front of it and rollers on it

He sat in the cab and used the arm to dig out the hole, and then fill it with tarmac and sealed it then rolled over it and it was as good as new

Maybe took him 15/20 mins and then off he went to the next one

I have to say I was seriously impressed with it and a couple of years later it’s still fine

And it’s a pretty busy road with a lot of agricultural traffic as well HGV’s and cars along it

Bizarrely they also resurface roads that I look at and think it’s in better condition than the M6

[Biker 1]

Presumably most councils haven't got the ££ to buy one of these: https://www.jcb.com/en-gb/products/wheeled-excavat...

[Lotobear]

I suspect many are simply bodged with a one size fits all approach - holes at 75mm or 100mm deep will simply be filled up with wearing course material which will extrude and fail in a short time under heavy axle loads.

[JagLover]

Biker 1 said:

Presumably most councils haven't got the ££ to buy one of these: https://www.jcb.com/en-gb/products/wheeled-excavat...

I very much doubt that would be more expensive over any length of time.

[Downward]

Hammersia said:

Doubt there is anything unusual about this sort of repair standard, loads of streets near me have had repairs failing after a month or two.

I imagine there's a lot of backhanders going on for favored contractors, and zero QA - I blame the councils 100%

Guess it’s hard to monitor their work but they should have KPI’s with the companies so should get them repaired at no extra cost.


I worked well I was based at an office at a University and 1 day 2 blokes in a van came to put some kind of clear coating on a wall.
They were there for a day with 95% of the time sitting in the van.

I know lads who work in trades, When we were like early 20’s there’s always stories of them sleeping on the job taking it in turns.

[119]

I expect it was done in a hurry whilst it was still wet if it was particularly hazardous and spends much of its life under water.

But don’t let that stop people complaining and contacting the daily mail with the obligatory compo face.

[A.J.M]

PhillipM said:

All the repairs here these days are "Throw a shovel of tarmac off the back of a van in the hole, and then drive over it on the way out to compact it" - literally a 2 minute job, they don't care if it needs doing again a month later, the council will pay for it again, because the only thing they look for is the lowest bidder and there's no accountability for QA.

That almost is what I watched my LA do for filling in a busy A road a few weeks ago.
They threw tar down, partially tapped it down, then moved to the next one.
They hadn’t done it level, or sealed it to stop water getting in.
It was done as quickly as possible and the road is an uneven mess of a road. Which is worrying given the speed limit for the road.

[bodhi]

9 days sounds like a proper job compared to the ones round here. They fixed the pothole that buckled two of my wheels and caused suspension damage the day after I hit it. Two days later it was back, but then if you see the state of the repair....

[cliffords]

On Monday they closed a road near me in West Sussex and repaired three big potholes in one overall repair. A repair about 3m long and 1m wide. They did not attend to the next one , largest of them all 20m further along .
I walked past the repair today and it's already broken up, with this rain it will be a big hole again by the end of today .

[Bluevanman]

There was a news item the other day,they were speaking to one of the guys doing pothole repairs and he said he was hoping that the repair would last a year .
If that's the expectation no wonder the roads are getting worse.

[heisthegaffer]

We moved 18 months ago and the bit of road outside my drive has been done 5 times in this time and a few weeks ago it's started to deteriorate yet again.

Is it back handers perpetuating this work being done over and over again?

[Evolved]

The roads are a visual representation of the state of the U.K. as a whole. Beyond repair and a bottomless hole to shovel money and resource into.

[Previous]

heisthegaffer said:

We moved 18 months ago and the bit of road outside my drive has been done 5 times in this time and a few weeks ago it's started to deteriorate yet again.

Is it back handers perpetuating this work being done over and over again?

Possibly naieve however I don't believe much of the brown envelope stuff goes on, not in this way (keep fixing the same hole) at least.

Procurement teams not knowing what they're buying and awarding based on the lowest cost, and the winners not being able to afford to do anything but bodge and go, plus almost zero QC are more likely.

IMHO of course.

[monkfish1]

bodhi said:

9 days sounds like a proper job compared to the ones round here. They fixed the pothole that buckled two of my wheels and caused suspension damage the day after I hit it. Two days later it was back, but then if you see the state of the repair....

Thats good. They have a wacker plate. Better than the repair done outside my house.

They had truck with tarmac, and NO tools apart from a spade to shovel it out. Levelled it with his boots. Drove over it afterwards with the truck. No broom, no rake, no wacker plate.

Wasnt even a pothole, but a subsidence dip. So no actual edge. You could just kick it free with your foot.

Utterly pointless. Or fraud if you consider its public money.