Harlow must get fair share of county council's pothole cash

Today’s announcement from Essex County Council that the authority is to invest an additional £11m to repair the county’s roads is to be welcomed.

I have been calling for some time now for repairs to be carried out on roads across the Harlow area.

I am sure that every driver is aware of roads where potholes have developed and I only hope that now that this funding has been agreed that Harlow and the surrounding villages get their fair share of the money so that the long-awaited repairs can be carried out as soon as possible.

The county council says that it repaired more than 50,000 potholes across Essex in 2011-12 however extreme weather conditions including heavy snowfall in the winter, followed by a hot dry spring and then by severe flooding, have caused damage to the county’s roads and increased the need for repairs.

The first phase of the programme will start this month and will target the number of outstanding defects waiting for repair across Essex.

The second phase of work will start in November and will focus on strengthening the road network to ensure that fewer potholes occur in the longer term.

In addition to this proposed investment, Essex County Council will also start work on its annual surface dressing programme next week.

.This is a ten-week programme that will see surface dressing carried out on 1.6 million square metres of road across the county. This year’s programme is a third larger than last year’s.