Cheshire East Council has released a statement to clarify the number of potholes on our roads across the borough.
On March 6th the Council hit back following reports in a national newspaper that Cheshire East Council is the worst in the UK for potholes.
New analysis by Tempcover, which was based on data from FixMyStreet.com, showed that Cheshire East Council topped the list with 17,191 open pothole reports, with the oldest reported in March 2020.
Councillor Mark Goldsmith, chair of Cheshire East Council's highways and transport committee, said: "Thankfully, Cheshire East does not have 17,197 potholes as incorrectly reported in a recent national newspaper. Instead, at the time of this article appearing, we had 550* defects. This is across a network of almost 1,680 miles (2,700kms).
"Last year, we fixed over 35,000 potholes, and the 550 represent a normal number that we could expect to be assessing."
A couple of weeks later the Annual Local Authority Road Maintenance (ALARM) survey report stated that the backlog of carriageway repairs in England and Wales has reached new heights at almost £17 billion – the highest figure in 30 years of reporting.
On March 21st, in response to the ALARM report Councillor Mark Goldsmith, Chair of Cheshire East Council's Highways and Transport Committee said "It's clear our roads have taken a hammering this winter. The prolonged icy weather has caused a huge number of potholes to appear very quickly. Last week we filled 4,500* potholes to keep our roads safe and we expect to fill 60,000 this year. That compares to 37,000 last year."
*Cheshire East Council have issued the followed statement today (Wednesday, 26th March:
"To clarify, our latest statement should have read: To keep our roads safe, last month we treated almost 4,150 potholes and defects.
"The 550 figure below relates to the defects that were waiting to be assessed in the system at the time the national article appeared (which related to data from fix my street)."
Comments
Here's what readers have had to say so far. Why not add your thoughts below.
https://www.ringway-jacobs.co.uk/about
Then scroll down a bit until you reach the part about CHESHIRE EAST COUNCIL HIGHWAYS.
According to the blurb by RINGWAY JACOBS they are 'contracted' to Cheshire East to 'deliver safe, efficient and innovative highway services and award-winning infrastructure projects across the borough.'
Does this include ignoring our award-winning potholes then? Or have they not yet perfected an award-winning pothole repair procedure?
Can someone from the highways department of CEC explain what Ringway Jacobs is supposed to do with our money they hand over regarding highway repairs?
Have a look through the rest of their self-adulating website and see if you get the same feeling that I have in that we are all being taken for a ride [down a road full of potholes] when it comes to what we get for our money!
A 15-year road maintenance contract with a UK council should typically include KPIs focusing on work quality, such as road condition and compliance with standards; response times for emergency and routine maintenance; safety measures, including health and safety compliance and accident reduction; cost control through budget adherence and cost per mile of road maintained; environmental impact through sustainability efforts; customer satisfaction through feedback and service response; asset management for long-term infrastructure care; innovation adoption; and regular performance reviews and reporting to ensure contract compliance - where are the KPIs reported?
On 25th January 2024, the Highways and Transport Committee commissioned an independent external peer review to inform decision making regarding the potential exercising of a break clause in the Highway Service Contract. On 19th July 2024, the Highways and Transport Committee received and considered the report from the peer review and resolved that the break clause was not exercised.
The Peer Review was undertaken by the Future Highway Research Group (FHRG) in Spring 2024 and benchmarked the performance of Cheshire East Council's Highways Service against 40 other authorities across the country. Overall, the Council’s services ranked in the second quartile - 14th out of the 40 authorities. This indicates that the Council
gets reasonable value for money for the services covered by the contract.
Cheshire East is already a Level 3 Highway Authority (the highest rating), which means that the Council receives an additional £2m per annum through the DfT's Incentive Fund; nevertheless, the independent report did highlight a number of areas where the service could be improved upon and the recommended actions are set out in Appendix 1 to the report to the Highways & Transport Committee meeting on Thursday 23rd January 2025.
The link to the Appendix (with relevant KPIs) may be found here: https://moderngov.cheshireeast.gov.uk/ecminutes/documents/s122268/Appendix%201%20for%20Highways%20Service%20Contract%20Improvement%20Action%20Plan.pdf
The recommendations within the report were received by the committee and approved unanimously by members of all political groups. I hope this helps.
Kind regards,
Craig