ON a cold, wet and windy Wednesday morning a team of dedicated workers were out fixing Lancashire’s ‘biggest source of complaints’ — potholes.

After hundreds of complaints about potholes since January 1, the Lancashire Telegraph hit the road to see how council highways staff fix the problem. Today, they tackled a large pothole in Moss Side Lane, Chipping.

To fix the pothole, workers cleared out any loose material including rain and cut a square or rectangle around the edge of the hole. With the weather making their job more difficult, they then applied a ‘tack coat’ — a liquid which helps waterproof the repair and make a better bond between the road and material being used for the repair.

To fill the hole, they used a type of hot bitumen material and compacted it using a vibrating plate or roller to create a good seal. This permanent repair method is a more traditional way of repairing potholes and council bosses are hoping to introduce a jet patching system in the coming months — a new piece of kit to quickly repair pockmarked roads.

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Keith Iddon, cabinet member for highways and transport, said: “Potholes are easily our biggest source of complaints. We want to get across though how difficult it is at this time of the year to attend to potholes because of the weather, water and frost. I’m aware that we’ve got to adapt to the weather conditions and bring in the new technology which is what we’re trying to do with the jet patching."

Phil Durnell, head of highways for Lancashire County Council, said the authority hoped to bring in the jetpacks in February and March.

He said: “We have six of them but this will be weather dependent. There have been problems with potholes on Moss Side Lane and elsewhere following the prolonged frost we had in November and December for a three-week period and before that all the rain.

“That’s gone into the ground and absolutely saturated which does make our job more difficult.”

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So far in January 2018, the council said it had around 2,600 outstanding defects across the county.

In January 2017, there were 3,884 potholes reported by inspectors and residents, while in January 2016 there were 3,773 potholes.

In order to prioritise how the council deals with potholes, inspectors said they consider potholes to be a sharp edged depression or hole at least 40mm deep on roads or 25mm deep on footways.

The council have 10 inspectors working year-round to check roads for safety and report issues such as potholes.

During the current financial year, the council said it was expecting to spend in the region of £7.7m on work to repair and prevent potholes.

Mr Iddon added: "We hope that when the new jet patching system is brought in, we'll make some real inroads and have all the potholes repaired by the end of March."

To report a pothole, people can contact the customer contact centre on 0300 123 6780, e mail highways@lancashire.gov.uk or follow links to report a highways fault at www.lancashire.gov.uk