The Express & Star join Dudley Council as they lead a pothole fixing blitz along Peartree Lane, Dudley.
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00:00Councils in the West Midlands will be required to prove they're taking action to tackle potholes
00:06or face losing cash in a new move by the government.
00:10The Express and Star has this week launched a week-long series looking at the appalling
00:15state of our roads and when they'll be fixed.
00:19Here in Dudley they're taking matters into their own hands, never mind Port Patrol, it's
00:24Pothole Patrol.
00:26Cabinet Member for Highways and the Environment Damien Caulfield is donning his high-vis jacket
00:32and heavy boots and joining his colleagues on Monday evening as fixing as many potholes
00:38as they can along the busy Pear Tree Lane and the Express and Star is with the team
00:43all the way.
00:44OK Damien, good to see you out tonight with your colleagues, working hard, that's going
00:51to be into the night.
00:52As I said in the intro, councils in the West Midlands nationwide are under pressure to
00:57fix these potholes from the central government or they could lose money.
01:01Has that prompted some of the action that we see tonight?
01:05It has and obviously, you know, Dudley Council, it's a priority of us to get the roads in
01:11the Dudley Borough up to the best standard we possibly can and for me as a cabinet member
01:15I've spent 35 years in the every road transport industry so I've got a key link to that and
01:20it's a personal priority for me as well.
01:23You know, my vehicles travel hundreds of thousands of miles every year so I understand where
01:29the frustration comes from residents when they're driving over potholes, their vehicles
01:33are being damaged and it's not a pleasant way to travel the borough's roads.
01:38How much of a priority is fixing roads in Dudley and just how big a job is it?
01:44Well Dudley's got over 740 miles of roads and as I've said to you earlier on, a big
01:49change for Dudley Council was two years ago when we brought in a five year proactive repair
01:55and resurfacing programme.
01:56Prior to that, a lot of the repairs were being done reactively so now obviously we've still
02:02got reactive work because roads still break up but with this proactive programme running
02:06in the background, any roads that need full renovation will be done and resurfaced in
02:11year one and then repairs that you see tonight that will extend the lives of roads between
02:15seven and ten years.
02:16If the roads there are less damaged then we can fit those into year two, three, four,
02:20five and that programme will continue to evolve as we're going along.
02:25And how does Dudley compare to other councils in the Midlands and nationwide?
02:29We hear a lot of complaining about potholes in Coventry, in Birmingham, in Bronzegrove
02:34over the last few weeks, how does Dudley compare to that in terms of the amount of roads they
02:40have to fix?
02:41Well I think it's evident, I mean I travel from Staffordshire, I work just on the outskirts
02:46of Staffordshire.
02:47When you drive from Staffordshire, you come into the Dudley boundary, then you go from
02:50Sandwell to Wolverhampton and to Walsall, the Dudley roads are far superior to any of
02:56our neighbouring local authorities.
02:58So that's evident that you can see how fully committed we are to resurface the roads in
03:02the borough.
03:03And as we mentioned, public transport, haulage, motorists, cyclists, what's your message to
03:11the general public who use the roads in Dudley borough over the pothole issue?
03:16Yeah, Dudley Council's fully committed to repair as many potholes now and obviously
03:22resurfacing work that we're doing going forward now.
03:24As you've already mentioned, we've got extra funding this year and we've got extra funding
03:28next year.
03:29So we'll be carrying out more resurfacing work, we'll be carrying out more partial resurfacing
03:34work and patch repairing, as you can see behind me, and then we'll get to the extent there
03:40where we'll get the vast majority of the borough's roads to a very good standard.
03:43Well, that police car wasn't going to stop, was it?
03:46No, it wasn't.
03:47OK, well, thanks for talking to us and let's have a look at what's going on tonight.
03:50OK.
03:51We're here with Mark Reeves, Senior Engineer, on a busy Monday night for your guys and the
03:57crew.
03:58Just talk us through a little bit, if you can, what they're doing in this process here.
04:02So what we're doing, we're doing some structural potholing, which is basically trying to create
04:07some more longevity on the road surface.
04:11We're calling them like blitz potholes and what we're mainly doing is dealing with these
04:15locations that are just too busy to deal with during the day.
04:19So we've put together a programme of, like I said, blitz potholes.
04:24This is the third batch of the work that we've put together and almost completed.
04:30And I imagine it's an ongoing process with the amount of potholes, the maintenance of
04:36the roads.
04:37Is it a bit of a blitz at the moment?
04:40That's what we're trying to do.
04:42What we're doing on the night time blitz is dealing with the awkward locations to try
04:46and minimise the disruption of the road users during the day.
04:51This is an extremely busy road, not just for road users, but it's very industrial as well.
04:58So if we tried to carry out this work during the day, we'd be disrupting both the commercial
05:03and the public users as well.
05:05Hence why we're here now on an evening carrying out the work.
05:08Still busy on an evening, but motorists are responding well to the stop go signs and I'm
05:13sure they'll appreciate the work that you're doing.
05:16Yeah, they do respond really well to it.
05:18The guys who are carrying out the work, one of our term contractors, the TM is good.
05:24They're always in touch, always in control.
05:26We make sure the traffic flows freely as well, so you need one guy to watch and like I said
05:31they're constantly in radio control.
05:33Especially if we get an emergency vehicle come through, we make sure that we get them
05:36flowing through with no disruption.
05:38As you saw earlier on, with that police car coming through quite quick, there was no disruption
05:43to it.
05:44Well good to see you and good to see the work going ahead.
05:47Yeah, and you.
05:48Okay, thanks.