Potholes across the county have got so bad they’re dangerous. Money is being wasted on a toxic mix of patching, repatching and short-term quick fixes, with potholes filled only to be ‘fixed’ again a few weeks later. Our roads need a new approach of better-quality repairs, which will last longer and end the vicious circle of crisis management.

It’s true that our roads endure more wear and tear than ever before. We drive bigger and heavier vehicles, while car ownership has increased significantly. The proportion of households with two or more cars has more than quadrupled over the past 50 years. Weather patterns are also changing, bringing wetter winters and poor surface water drainage is a prime cause of potholes. A lack of maintenance of gullies, culverts and ditches can lead to water sitting on the carriageway, where it breaks up the road, particularly when we get cold weather.

But these aren’t the only factors. Potholes are also worse because of the short-term fire-fighting approach that many local authorities take to dealing with them. Council engineers have said to us that if they turn up, chuck some cold tar in a pothole and pat it down with a spade, they can repair 100 potholes this way in a day. If they were to cut out the old dead tarmac in a rectangle shape, hot fill it, roll over the top and seal round the edges, they can only fill ten potholes a day. But so many of the 100 cold-filled potholes require repairing again just a few weeks later. So, it’s a vicious circle. Residents are paying out hundreds of thousands of pounds every year for ineffective pothole repairs.

We need a new proactive approach fit for the long term. My colleague Cllr Tony Kear arranged for Monmouthshire County Council a free two-day trial of JCB’s new Pothole Pro machine, which can repair potholes in a much quicker, safer and cleaner way. Unfortunately, no one from the Labour/Green coalition, who actually make key spending decisions, bothered to turn up to see the trial. The Pothole Pro is being used by an increasing number of councils in England because it can permanently repair a pothole in less than eight minutes from start to finish and costs just £30 per pothole. The Council urgently needs to bring forward a strategy to fix our roads and end the crisis management and fire-fighting, which is getting us nowhere.