Blitz on county’s potholes promised

Herefordshire is to spend over £2.5 million this autumn fixing the worst of the county’s potholes.

Herefordshire Council leader Jonathan Lester told a full meeting of councillors last Friday (July 28): “We will be using this tranche of funding to allow our works teams to effectively patch roads across the county, preparing them for surface dressing in the spring of 2024.”

He added: “We recognise that this is not enough to repair every road surface in the county. But we will work with our public realm partners and local communities to ensure this new investment is targeted appropriately.”

True Independents leader Coun Bob Matthews said he warmly welcomed plans “to repair our roads, which are in a highly dangerous state”.

“Can we make sure we get a proper high standard of work from our partners, and also value for money, because that clearly hasn’t been the case in the past?” he asked.

Coun Lester said that the council’s public realm partner Balfour Beatty “are best placed to deliver that work”, adding: “We need to spend that money within a certain time, and they have the information on where the defects are.”

Liberal Democrat leader Terry James said: “this is a drop in the ocean compared to what’s needed”.

“What we need is value for money and we have not been getting that from Balfour Beatty,” he said.

Greens leader Coun Ellie Chowns said: “One of the things that makes running a council challenging is the lack of a multi-year finance settlement from central Government – for which pots of money here and there to patch up potholes are no substitute.”

Coun Lester said the Government had given the council £63 million in roads funding since 2019, “and I will continue to press for that”.

“We have a low tax base and lots of roads to repair,” he said, adding that council money for more extensive roadworks next year “has already been set aside, and has to be spent as effectively as possible”.

The state of the county’s roads emerged as one of the main issues during May’s local elections in Herefordshire. This led to the Conservatives, who pledged to address the problem, taking back minority control.