Storrsy
Well-known member
Yeah it's always easier to idolise other countries. There plenty s**t about the UK at the moment but plenty to be grateful for too (no thanks to the current gov though).
TiltyShaun
Well-known member
Before a left for the holiday I have been in discussion with the highways department about a collapsed drain under the highway which is causing water to run down the road, eroding away the tarmac that is currently there. Apparently they have no budget left for materials so job being planned for the next financial year.
I did catch up with one of the gangs working further up the road where the lorry went in the ditch (Great job tidying up that they are claiming on the lorry insurance). He said that they was doing a highway drain the previous week that had been budgeted. But no one allowed for pipe collars and they had to butt joint and tape the joints as they was no money to get some. Would be funny if it wasn’t true!!
I did catch up with one of the gangs working further up the road where the lorry went in the ditch (Great job tidying up that they are claiming on the lorry insurance). He said that they was doing a highway drain the previous week that had been budgeted. But no one allowed for pipe collars and they had to butt joint and tape the joints as they was no money to get some. Would be funny if it wasn’t true!!
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6feetdown
Well-known member
Lancs Lad
Well-known member
Unbelievable...but not sadly.
And yet I guarantee there's a cozy office full of non jobs like diversity and community cohesion officers twiddling their thumbs at county hall. Joke
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6feetdown
Well-known member
Yep 100%
pettsy
Well-known member
Local council doing some pothole repairs, and completely ignore this right next to it. That’ll generate another job 
V8Druid
do it as well as you can,but learn to do it better
crater down the road from our drive, which has claimed several wheels, in the last couple of weeks, has had some black top lobbed in it and shown the back of a shovel Monday ... bloody disgrace - 30" across and it looks like the alps/andes across it - couldn't even get it looking roughly flat FFS .... will be spread all over the road again next week 
pettsy
Well-known member
The worst part is no-one is held accountable. Someone should be keeping the “repairs” in check, and if it’s not done correctly then should be called to account for the sub-standard work. In the private sector you wouldn’t get paid!
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Rob65
Well-known member
What sort of warranty time could reasonably be expected for a resurfaced road?
The road past my house was planed and surfaced within probably the last 8 years. It’s full of potholes now. Is that to be expected or was it likely a sub standard job?
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Smiffy
Well-known member
It's more complicated than that as how can you hold a contractor accountable if are unwilling to pay for high quality repairs.
The budget isn't big enough and rather than pay for 30% of potholes to be fixed to high standard they know you will get less complaints if they are seen to be attempting a repair on 100% of potholes even if it's a low quality repair. You also have the problem that the general public are absolute arseholes and make the physical act of fixing potholes difficult by complaining about road works being rude to workers, driving dangerously around coned off areas, so on and so forth.
Then we get to the point that our roads are designed for pony and traps, or maybe at best an Austin 7. A huge amount of our roads need full depth reconstruction, otherwise any amount of potholes repairs or even resurfacing are futile.
Whilst I don't have a very high opinion of councils or some of their highway staff, there are far more dimensions to the problem than any of the Facebook personalities that are ranting away on a daily basis will ever understand. And I find that more annoying than the potholes tbh. Atleast I can avoid the Facebook rants.
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Smiffy
Well-known member
The wearing course should last 10-15 years. On most roads, this does reduce in areas of high traffic. Bus terminals are less than 5 where they brake in the same exact spot constantly, the tarmac pushes down the road so you get a tear at one end of the bus station and a hump at the other end.
But is it the surface that's failed or the sub base. If the subbase fails you get puddling and then potholes. Has the highway drainage been maintained to shed water correctly as again water sitting will cause potholes.
Then you have problems laying it in the first place. The council won't pay for the kerb lines to be replaced prior to resurfacing. Most kerb lines have sunk or settled over the years. They council will penalise the contractor if they run to high or low on the kerb line to counteract kerb settlement as it's a safety hazard to have an incorrect height kerb face. So the contractors end up laying roads with puddles from day 1.
External utility contractors usually have 1 year bond on the work. Some of the councils own work obviously won't have this
pettsy
Well-known member
I’m not talking resurfacing the M1 here, I’m talking about a minor repair. The most basic job that some of my local council and its subbies don’t seem to be able to do. They have a full hotbox in tow, with all the necessary kit to do a decent job, yet are basically just throwing a shovel full in and running the wacker over twice. I bet there’s more dropped in the local lay-bys before knock of than what’s been laid all day!
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Smiffy
Well-known member
It doesn't matter what kit they have got. If the surrounding road plus sub base, base and binder is knackered which is usually they case it won't last. If they area has a massive dip that holds water, repairing a pothole is futile.
Some other info for you.
The k140 tac coat that is applied requires 2hrs to crack before it should be laid on for optimum results. Noone would be very impressed seeing the pothole gang sit around for 2 hrs waiting for this.
Tarmac doesn't last well in hot boxes. They are great to allow you to manage time between collection and laying for time critical work. For potholes they aren't great. The material doesn't get agitated enough. And it's in there to long. Especially when you consider that a lot of council yards have big static hotboxes that you can reverse a wagon into. These get filled with 40t of tarmac on Monday morning and loaded out into mobile hotboxes with a telehandler every morning.
It saves money on the bulk buy of material and saves time for the gang each day. Unfortunately it does no favours to the material.
The next problem is that a lot of the work is still done with ac10 as it takes a lot of skill and is quite difficult to lay an sma or PMB 10 in a pothole.
The material used for hand lay is either 90 or 120 pen. This is the penetration value once cooled. Machine lay is 30 pen.
So generally the material used for potholes is pretty rubbish it's a weak grade of a poor performance material that is past it's sell by date.
It is very difficult to get a nice consistent base to do a pothole repair by hand. A planer is far superior for prep work.
Once the patch is laid, best practice is to use over banding to seal the joints. This has been banned by the majority of councils as it is slippery and to many cyclists and motorbikers sued them.
For really good long lasting repairs, it is far superior to send a small planer in. Followed by a sweeper. To take out a patch a meter wide. Then use a mini paver to relay.
And then over band. Preferably take 150mm deep and put 100mm of new binder back in. Then plane out an area slightly so that the binder joint and wearing course joint are offset by atleast 300mm.
This is how we do distribution centres with high hgv traffic.
We also use poly modified bitumen in the wearing course and heavy duty macadam or an eme2 product for the binder.
It's expensive but gives a really high quality repair.
Giles
Well-known member
BBC Oxfordshire | "One minute everything was fine, the next I'm staring at the tarmac and not able to get up." George Balkwill was riding a Voi hired... | Instagram
9,965 likes, 1,280 comments - bbcoxford on February 18, 2026: ""One minute everything was fine, the next I'm staring at the tarmac and not able to get up." George Balkwill was riding a Voi hired...
www.instagram.com
Haha
D
DaveDCB
Well-known member
I think you need a job on the reform pothole committee
Routy56
Well-known member
It's exactly the same here is NE Essex. We live in a very rural location with the B1352 running through with a 7.5T weight limit. With regular A120 closures the diversion is through this road with all the 44T LGVs going to/from Harwich International Port. Every time a lorry goes in the ditch or bridges get damaged and culverts collapse. As resident we always report this stuff to Highways England and Essex County Highways. They haven't got a clue until we get them on site.
A recent culvert blocked was causing serious flooding just down the road. Took me and other residents about 4 years of reports with photos to get it fixed
The above is now fixed
But what seriously pisses me off is that fact that the authorities no longer clean out the ditches.
And the grips that let the water run from the road to the ditch are not cleaned out either.
The result is that the surface water runs down the road and not in the ditch - WTF is going on
Routy56
Well-known member
So we fitted the new tyres yesterday, which meant that I had some great catch up time with my brother GrahamJust as bad for potholes here in NE Essex. Coming home one dark night during last week hit a large puddle and a big bang
View attachment 79808
Fortunately this was in my old 'project car' 2008 Ford Mondeo Titanium X diesel.
And the next day checked it in the daylight to find a horrible little bulge on the front 235/40 ZR18 tyre
Ordered a replacement via eBay which has gone up to £54-95. To be fitted at Graham's place as soon as it arrives....
Mind you it cost me a few sausage rolls and yum yums from Greggs to bribe him
William127
Well-known member
Was just about to launch into a rant about how my front left alloy has been ruined by a particular pothole....
Then I remembered I actually smacked it into an 8 inch kerb, rushing to the pub
The pothole definitely finished it off though
Then I remembered I actually smacked it into an 8 inch kerb, rushing to the pub
The pothole definitely finished it off though
Furniss
Well-known member
shear volume of traffic in uk is huge part of the problem, we dont have that yet in rural france, but when a scenario arrives that intensifies the traffic onto a certain road, its not long before it suffers, they have been buggering about with a chicane up out of our village in an attempt to slow people down and even that is buggering the road, so its a pretty hopeless exercise in the u.k, bring on the drone that transports people about, thats going to be fun
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Smiffy
Well-known member
shear volume of traffic in uk is huge part of the problem, we dont have that yet in rural france, but when a scenario arrives that intensifies the traffic onto a certain road, its not long before it suffers, they have been buggering about with a chicane up out of our village in an attempt to slow people down and even that is buggering the road, so its a pretty hopeless exercise in the u.k, bring on the drone that transports people about, thats going to be fun
Realistically they need to improve public transport to the point it is a preferable choice to car. That and ban suspension on cars so people aren't so isolated in there cars and drive at an appropriate speed for the road.
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