OPINION: Forging ahead with the battle on potholes as surface dressing programme begins - Suffolk County Council

As we move into spring and enjoy some milder weather, Suffolk Highways continues its concerted efforts on repairing the roads across Suffolk. Following months of cold and wet weather, the inevitable rise in potholes is the talking point for so many currently.

Unfortunately, this plight is one that’s impacting motorists up and down the country and Suffolk is no exception. Potholes become a lot worse during the winter months, due to colder and wetter weather.

In the past six months, Suffolk Highways has repaired over 9,000 potholes, which is around a 34% increase in the number repaired in the same period last year.

The repairing of potholes and maintaining of our road surfaces doesn’t just mean the patch repairs we tend to see on our journeys. There are a variety of methods and programmes of work that are undertaken to improve road surfaces, and prevent further deterioration of our roads.

Suffolk Highways has recently been trialing new ways of working to ensure repairs can be made quicker, more sustainably and with limited impact on the travelling public. They also have developed substantial resurfacing and surface dressing programmes, the latter of which includes patching work to prepare the road for surface dressing. Resurfacing and surface dressing extend the life of Suffolk’s roads by reducing water ingress and preventing pothole formation.

This week we are excited to have begun our surface dressing programme, which will see roads across the county laid with a new surface throughout during the spring and summer. During this period residents are set to benefit from 102 newly surfaced roads covering a length of over 90 miles.

Surface dressing is an efficient, sustainable and cost-effective maintenance treatment that prolongs the life of a road surface – it restores skid resistance and seals the road surface from water, whilst removing potholes and improving level differences.

New for this year, Suffolk Highways has invested in new vehicles which allow new surface to be laid in a safer and more efficient way. For example the new vehicles eliminate the risk of hitting overhead cables or structures.

The teams have also been focussing their efforts on reducing the time, waste and inconvenience caused by pothole repairs, by trialling new technology and processes.

One of these trials has been the ‘RoadMender’, which works on both asphalt and concrete roads and is designed for repairs to all types of potholes and is capable of overlaying areas with multiple potholes in a single visit. The process is more efficient, reducing material and waste by 90% and avoiding unnecessary disruption on roads.

We have also completed a trial with the ‘Dragon Patcher’ – a pothole-repairing machine used to target the growing number of potholes in rural Suffolk. The machine releases compressed air which cleans the surface of the road, the Dragon Patcher then heats the road surface to a temperature that enables repair material to bond effectively with the road, allowing the pothole to be repaired quickly, meaning less disruption to motorists.

These new ways of tackling potholes mean we’re able to repair them up to five times faster when compared with the traditional repair of potholes. The Dragon Patcher is also fuelled by the biodiesel, HVO (hydrotreated vegetable oil), reduces raw material use and creates zero waste and has shown to provide significant carbon savings when compared to traditional repairs.

We also started our machine surfacing programme back in December, this process involves removing all or some of the existing road surface, removing this from site. The area will have the manholes and gullies adjusted and replaced if required. A bitumen spray coat will then be applied and the new surface laid. Since December we have resurfaced 41 roads, with 319 sites identified for repair in this new financial year, which is one of the largest machine surfacing programmes to be undertaken in Suffolk.

The surface dressing programme sits alongside the programmes for reactively repairing potholes and resurfacing roads, all complementing one another.

As an authority we recognise the importance of investing more into keeping our roads and highways in good shape, this is why we invested an extra £21 Million between 2017 and 2021 towards resurfacing 1,000 miles of road. Last year we announced a further £10 Million for the surfacing of local roads in 2024.

Our teams are out inspecting our roads regularly to find defects for repair; working to reduce the risk to motorists where possible. However, we cannot be everywhere, so we need your help to let us know if you spot a pothole which needs repairing. You can do this by visiting highwaysreporting.suffolk.gov.uk, or calling 0345 606 6171.