In the wake of the extreme winter weather (see my earlier piece Flood, Freeze & Thaw), ESCC Highways contractor has repaired nearly 6000 potholes since the beginning of the year (5979), including 1715 since last week. There are 1780 potholes in the reporting system awaiting repair which is an improvement on this time last week.
The contractor continues to deploy 23 gangs engaged in repairing potholes, which is 13 more than normal. ESCC Highways envisage this level of resource remaining until early March, but are keeping an eye on the number of potholes being reported.
The Conservative Lead member for Transport & Environment, Councillor Claire Dowling, said earlier this week that the road patching programme is continuing at pace and that we have brought forward some of the coming financial year’s budget in order to maintain the momentum.
Conservative-run East Sussex raised the Highways maintenance budget for the next decade by 15% (£31 million) in last year’s budget - a budget that the Lib Dems declined to support! In total, along with an additional £5.8 million for pavements, patching and road safety, we put an additional £8.9 million into the current year highways budget. These spending commitments are maintained in the 2023/24 budget which we passed at Full Council earlier this week. We will continue to explore options to raise resourcing committed to this area as the new financial year unfolds and the funding position allows.
Please do keep reporting any serious road defects across the town on the County Highways website:
https://www.eastsussexhighways.com/report-a-problem/roads
