Highland Council To Do More On Potholes With Rapid Road Repair Team

14th August 2023

At Full Council on 2 March 2023, the Council agreed to provide £1.266m of funding for a temporary Rapid Road Repair Team in 2023/24. This was to provide centrally managed, strategic support to enable road repairs in targeted areas across the Highlands.

The Roads (Scotland) Act 1984 places a statutory duty on Roads Authorities to manage and maintain their road network. Potholes can form over a short time and usually continue to deteriorate the road surface around them unless repaired. Operating a dedicated team to not only repair defects, but monitor them from a central point, will allow the Council to target specific problem areas and therefore prevent deterioration of the network. This is a cost avoidance measure as delaying repairs normally results in a larger and therefore more costly repair to be undertaken. It would also reduce the number of temporary, repeated repairs required, as the team would be undertaking permanent ones first time. The dedicated repair team would have a programme of permanent repairs, which were prioritised and targeted to alleviate pressure on the network and Area teams.

Currently, pothole/ patching repairs are dealt with as part of the Roads Area maintenance workload. This is in addition to a wide range of other cyclical maintenance tasks, including verge maintenance, drainage, the winter service and emergency responses. The Roads Area teams also undertake a significant amount of the roads capital works (resurfacing and surface dressing) during the summer period, which impacts on their reactive ability. The proposed temporary Rapid Road Repair Team, managed from a single point, will be additional to the resources already provided at Area level. It would not replace the Area resource but be a dedicated one to the repair of potholes (including patching) in the carriageway or footway out with the winter months. During winter, the operatives would be used to supplement the existing resources for gritting, etc.

The team is to comprise of the following staff for 6 months, as a trial:-
• Engineer/ Senior Technician;
• Operational Support Officer;
• Roads Foreperson; and
• 7 Roads Operatives

Adverts for the above posts were publicised on MyJobScotland in June and applications received. At the time of writing this report, the interview process was ongoing.