IN March, the deputy leader of Thurrock Council, cllr Shane Hebb announced that “By 2018, every pothole in Thurrock will be filled”.
We asked Thurrock Council if they would issue us with a ‘road map” as to how, over the next nine months, they were going to achieve this.
We also asked because, last week, the portfolio holder for roads, cllr Brian Little, made a presentation to his fellow councillors but did not detail how they were going to “fill in every pothole by 2018”
We asked cllr Little if he would speak to us personally but he said “Speak to communications”.
A Thurrock Council spokesperson said:
“Thurrock Council categorises pot holes in different ways. Pot holes which are inspected and considered to potentially cause injury, fall into the most urgent bracket and are scheduled to be repaired within two hours. This type of pothole is very rare, and we’re pleased to have met this deadline on every occasion.
The second tier of pothole is when the defect meets the intervention criteria and the Council’s policy is to fix these within 72 hours. This is the target which is reported through the council’s key performance indicator returns.
Finally, the new ‘Fill it’ campaign aims to prevent the escalation of potholes which are a concern to residents but do not meet our intervention criteria. The council is pleased that this is planned to continue to 2017 / 18”.
Well the last tranche of hole filling in Argent Street (last autumn) was a total disaster, the work was of such poor quality that many of the holes reappeared within DAYS, surrounded by crumbling asphalt! Lets hope they don’t sacrifice quality for quantity on the next blitz (as they obviously did here).