Cabinet Member for Transport and Labour councillor
for Avonmouth and Lawrence Weston ward.
The highways department at the council manages and maintains over 750 miles of roads across the network. It’s a pretty expansive network that requires constant monitoring and maintenance. A big part of that job is identifying, fixing and monitoring potholes across the city.
Despite the effort we put in to maintain the roads, we can’t be everywhere at once and I understand how frustrating potholes can be for motorists and other road users. I hear often about the concern people have about the number of potholes across Bristol and have been working closely with officers to ensure the plans and finances are in place to tackle issues as quickly as possible.
Back in March, I was pleased to confirm an investment of over £9 million had been secured to carry out essential highways maintenance and deliver transport schemes. As part of that funding, £1.4 million was put into the city’s Pothole Action Fund to pay for important road repairs and surfacing works.
Now, only a few weeks later, I’m delighted to be able to add a further £1 million to that fund, bringing this year’s Pothole Action Fund up to £2.4 million. This extra funding, secured from extra money made available by the Department for Transport, will be used to increase on the 2,500 pothole repairs carried out on average per year.
Our focus remains squarely on preventing defects from happening in the first place and we have a fully funded programme of maintenance interventions such as surface dressing, micro asphalt and other approaches lined us throughout the year.
By using a mix of inspections by highways officers, using digital condition surveys and reports from residents and visitors, we can prioritise this work to ensure the most necessary works are planned in first. This is why it’s important that if anyone sees an issue with the highway they should report it and help us better map out the areas we need to spend this additional funding on.
Anyone can report a damaged road or a pothole in Bristol. To report an issue on a motorway or the A4 Bristol Portway at Avonmouth contact the Highways Agency.