HIGHWAYS bosses say they are repairing potholes at a rate of 1,000 a week in the county and have denied claims that they have been “sitting on their backsides”.

Gloucestershire County Council’s economy, environment and infrastructure director Colin Chick told councillors last week that teams had been “working flat out” to repair thousands of potholes over the last four months, following a winter of heavy rainfall, snow and ice which has caused serious damage to the local road network.

The additional roadworks have caused an overspend of £750,000 in the last year, with much of the work continuing into the current financial year.

The condition of local roads has been a cause for concern amongst residents for many years in the Forest, with leader of the district council Tim Gwilliam describing Grove Road in Berry Hill as “dangerous” and “like a snooker table” because it had so many potholes in March last year.

Cllr Gwilliam claimed that issues with the road had been on-going for seven years and was frustrated with the response he received from Highways when he contacted them about its condition, before it was finally resurfaced in November last year.

Mr Chick told the county council recently: “From the beginning of January to the beginning of April, we actually repaired 16,000 potholes in four months.

“We are repairing potholes at the rate of 1,000 a week.

“That’s on top of all the other work we’ve been doing in parallel to that with the snow clearance, de-icing and gritting.

“It didn’t turn out as badly as we thought but we overspent our winter maintenance budget by about £250,000.

“The additional damage to the road surface meant we went over about £500,000 on responsive maintenance.

“This created a £750,000 overspend last year.

“The road surface was cracked up so badly that the work not only went over into April but that level of intervention carried on into May as well.

“So, two months into this financial year we were still repairing the damage from Christmas, January and February. It gives you some idea of the situation and the severity.

“So, for people complaining, I can assure you it wasn’t that we were sitting on our backsides, we were actually working flat out.”

Mr Chick explained that during a usual winter, Highways would have around 20 crews of workers out repairing roads, but that last winter saw 43 crews out working at its peak.

Highways teams manage around 3,300 miles of roads in the county, including around 80 miles of motorways and trunk roads.