UPDATE: As of Jan 10th
East Sussex Highways have just over 2000 reported potholes in the system currently (approximately 1200 more than the seasonal average). County’s contractor has put additional resources onto the repair of potholes (17 gangs, rising to 23 vs the usual 10) with gangs working extended hours during evenings and weekends. The have repaired over 700 since 3rd January.
The contractor is looking to bring in more gangs from subcontractors when they become available, but most of these resources are fully employed working on other ESCC work or employed on other business. In the interim, ESCC highways are diverting resources from other activities such as the filling of grit bins and footway works to support road repair efforts; hopefully these will only be temporary resource diversions.
Please continue to report potholes so that they can be added to the list (be aware that because of weather conditions some of these will be temporary and require making good later in the spring). Highways can only repair those potholes that they know about, and with over 2,000 miles of road for the Highways Stewards to monitor and service these will in all probability be picked up more speedily if we all report them as they develop. To report a pothole follow this link:
https://www.eastsussexhighways.com/report-a-problem/roads
Highways don’t repair every pothole that is reported; only those that meet County’s published ‘intervention’ criteria. Those criteria are described in the Guide to Highways on the East Sussex Highways website (link can be found on this website under “how I can help”). Those potholes that meet the criteria for repair will be repaired within 2 hours, 5 days, or 28 days depending on the size of the pothole, its location and type of road.
Where the Highways Steward judges that a pothole does not meet the prescribed criteria for repair, the Steward can refer a particular pothole, cluster of potholes or stretch of road for inclusion in our patching programme to which we devoted increased funding in our February 2022 budget. As of the end of November Highways have completed nearly 800 patches on some 400 roads, with patching to complete at another 100 sites before the end of the financial year.
The latest 10-day ‘roads’ forecast from the Met Office for East Sussex and adjacent counties, suggests with medium confidence, a return of snow and ice from this coming Sunday 15th January through to Thursday 19th. Our gritters are on standby every night during the winter and will be deployed as and when necessary, although the point of deployment is always a bit of a tricky judgement call for our highways winter team around when rain might end, and any snow might arrive (spreading salt on wet roads just washes off). We continue to fill grit bins, after public use of over 100 tonnes of salt in the first week of December. Please remember that the salt in grit bins is for use on roads and pavements and not for private paths and drives (builders’ merchants and DIY chains sell bags of rock salt for private use), while the effective amount used on roads as judged by the County Highways team is around 15g per square metre (not a shovel full). Please keep an eye on weather alerts from the Met Office before departing and take great care in these more hazardous than usual winter driving conditions.
