Essex residents will dig their council’s new approach to pothole repairs

04 December 2008

New, dedicated ‘pothole patrols’, using hand-held computers with GPS and in-built cameras will aim to double the number of pothole repairs carried out in Essex.

The county council’s scheme also aims to repair potholes on the first visit rather than marking them for repair at a later date.

‘Making potholes history’ will use technology such as thermally-insulated vehicles, intelligent GPS devices with in-built 3G technology, and digital imaging to help keep the state of repaired potholes regularly monitored. The scheme has been trialled successfully in Harlow and Braintree, where double the previous amount of potholes have been fixed compared with the previous month’s, leading to long-term cost savings of tens of thousands of pounds.

Cllr Norman Hume, cabinet member for highways and transportation, said the scheme would ‘enable us to put more effort into the real issues facing our residents, such as tackling congestion and making their journeys more reliable’.

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