Councils face huge bills for pothole repairs

?They are the bane of every driver's life and an unwelcome sight on the roads every winter - potholes.

The Express & Star wants to know where the worst roads are in the West Midlands, and needs your help.

Councils will have to spend millions after another freezing winter saw road surfaces crumble. Sandwell Council estimates its bill to be around £700,000 while Walsall is set to spend

£400,000. A £1.85 million operation to repair nearly 600 potholes in Staffordshire is under way as part of a campaign to mend thousands of weather-gouged holes on the region's roads.

Wolverhampton City Council received funding of £191,800 from the Government's Emergency Winter Damage Fund in April 2010.

And the authority provided an additional £45,000 to carry out repairs to more than 2,650 potholes.

But one Express & Star reader, Annette Morey, from Fordhouses in Wolverhampton, got in touch to report a 2ft pothole that she has to try to avoid every day.

The 65-year-old, of Slade Road, said the hole at the junction of Southbourne Road and Romsey Road had already been repaired once, but it kept opening up.

The play group volunteer and mother of two said: "Everyone just has to do their best to avoid it.

"That can be tricky, especially at night when people need to park outside their homes.

"The council has already been to fill it in but it hasn't solved the problem."

The Express & Star has also been told about a pothole 2ft wide in Bilston Road, Tipton.

Bus lanes on Willenhall Road and Stafford Street in Wolverhampton are also particularly bad.

Council chiefs in the city recently decided to stop using the more expensive red asphalt to repair bus lanes and to use normal black asphalt instead.

The red asphalt is more expensive and transport chiefs said it was "like chewing gum" after a spell of bad weather.