Pothole Push

Published

20th March 2018

More than twice the usual number of crews and £360,000 extra has been poured into repairing Dundee’s potholes in the past two weeks.

Almost as soon as the recent snow melted five pothole filling squads were despatched by the Roads Maintenance Partnership to work 7.30am to 4pm five days a week to repair the city’s roads.

Mark Flynn depute convener of Dundee City Council’s city development committee said: “I’m sure that almost everyone knows that potholes are an unpleasant, unwelcome but not unexpected consequence of bad weather.

“Anticipating this we were ready to put on three more squads and more than double the budget for repairs to keep Dundee moving and to try to maintain our position as the second best local authority roads network in Scotland.

“Dundee is the only council area in the country which uses hot tar to repair potholes as it creates a more durable fix and means we don’t have to keep coming back to the same ones time and again when the temporary repair settles.

“Anyone who sees a pothole can report it to us easily by going to
https://my.dundeecity.gov.uk/service/Road_and_Pavement_Defects___Report_It and we will get round to making the repair as quickly as we can.”

Roads in Dundee are maintained jointly by Dundee City Council and Tayside Contracts as the Roads Maintenance Partnership.

Its work is monitored and compared with national standards and based on 77 key performance indicators.

A recent report to the council’s city development committee revealed that pothole repairs continue to be an important focus for the Partnership both in terms of the quality and speed.

Figures showed that compared with the last four years, pothole numbers have reduced, from a peak in 2013/2014 of 26,638.

The most recent figures (for 2016/17) showed a 66% drop on that peak number to 8,850 down to milder winters, increased investment and the implementation of an asset management strategy.

More than a third, 3032 of the 2016/17 repairs were described as “first time, permanent”.

Dundee City Council

Dundee draws skilled workers from a 60-minute catchment population of 640,000 and has a local population of over 140,000. The availability of a large pool of highly skilled labour is a key feature in the Dundee economy. Flexibility in the labour force is currently more prevalent in Dundee than in Scotland as a whole. All forms of labour market flexibility - part-time, temporary employment, self-employment and shift work - are widely operational within the city. Labour force stability in the city is excellent, enabling companies to plan with confidence. Labour turnover levels are less than 5% and absenteeism averages 2%.

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