Essex potholes down by 20 per cent from April, according to authority

Potholes, cracks and other defects have reduced by 20 per cent on the county’s main roads since April 2014, Essex County Council has said.

The authority said the number of potholes was down from 1,280 to 1,073 on Priority 1 roads, and from 3,296 to 2,590 on Priority 2 roads.

Quarterly figures released today (Friday) also show that defects requiring work on local roads rose from 11,674 to 12,972.

Cabinet member for highways and transportation, Councillor Rodney Bass, said: “This is excellent news following a prolonged period of intensive work to bring Essex’s priority routes up to the standard our residents expect.

“We wish to build on this success and that is why we have 20 extra four-man crews on the roads aiming to fix all current carriageway defects on the Priority 1, Priority 2 and rural local road networks by 31 March 2015.”

He added: “We are also aiming to tackle the worst 700 urban local roads during this period, dealing not only with carriageway work but also with pavements, drains, curbs and other street furniture.”

The three types of road and associated priorities are as follows:

• County route (Priority 1) – Strategic roads with the highest volumes of traffic;

• County route (Priority 2) – Roads which provide an essential traffic management and distributor function between the Priority 1 network and local roads; and

• Local Roads – All other roads maintained by Essex County Council.

The figures show that more than 8,300 defects have been repaired across the three networks over the last three months.