The Express & Star join Dudley Council as they lead a pothole fixing blitz along Peartree Lane, Dudley.

Express & Star

Transcript

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.

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