POTHOLE repair teams are well on their way to fixing their 100,000th hole.
Despite looming budget cuts, Kirklees Council has revealed a ‘crack team’ of workers who been out all year long in a bid to repair the roads.
The work has been necessary after two extremely harsh winters, which saw numbers of potholes rise dramatically.
This year the team has repaired a massive 34,749 potholes – more than double the level of two years ago.
In 2010 it filled in 29,313 potholes, while the year before saw 15,878 holes repaired.
With repairs continuing next year, Highways workers are likely to hit the six figure mark in 2012, despite the proposed budget cuts.
Highways chief, Clr David Sheard, said they had employed extra staff to deal with the damaged roads.
He said: “The coldest temperatures and heaviest snowfalls in decades affected Kirklees roads over the last two winters.
“As a result, work to deal with the enormous number of potholes and road defects caused by the extreme weather has continued all year.
“The number of existing highways pothole gangs were boosted by external contractors, with up to 14 gangs dealing with the problems at some times, some of whom worked throughout most of the past year.
“As a result of their continued hard work, a total of 34,000 potholes were repaired using every bit of available funding that could be found.
“Kirklees Direct assisted by finding out from callers whether the potholes needed to be dealt with urgently – the most dangerous of these were repaired within two hours.”
The repair figures come shortly after Kirklees Council revealed it was planning to cut £278,000 from its £16.18m roads budget for 2011/12.
The Cabinet will decide on its plan of action and how to allocate the proposed budget at a Huddersfield Town Hall meeting on January 3.
To report a pothole in a road or on the pavement go online to:www.kirklees.gov.uk/transport/reporting/service-request.shtml or ring Street Care on 0800 731 8765.
