Council making decision on pothole repair machine

The Staffordshire manufacturer unveiled the JCB Pothole Pro last year and Stoke on Trent City Council worked with the firm to develop the new machine.

Tests showed the technology could complete a pothole repair in less than eight minutes – four times quicker than the traditional method.

During the initial tests, the machine completed 51 road repair jobs in just 20 days. That compares with up to six workers taking 63 days to carry out the same work.

At a Staffordshire Council scrutiny committee meeting this month committee member Michael Metcalf asked if the authority was using the Pothole Pro machine as part of its drive to fix thousands more road defects this year. He said: “It manages to do the pothole repairs at a very high quality at a much reduced time.

“It’s expensive but it pays for itself in savings fairly rapidly. I imagine it’s in great demand and I understand counties across the country have been trying to get hold of one.”

Councillor David Williams, cabinet member for highways and transport, responded: “There’s been lots of promotion on the Pothole Pro as a one-stop shop. It does a job, as in it will take the surface off, cut the edges and sweep it up.

“That’s all it does – it doesn’t fill the hole afterwards. And the quality of sides and cutting that we require for our repairs it doesn’t do; that still has to be done.

“We’ve just completed a two-week trial with the Pothole Pro on different roads in both North Staffordshire and Stafford. That’s now being evaluated and we’re going back to JCB to talk to them about the machine and possible improvements that we’ve found to it.

“It doesn’t do the job it seemed to claim to do – the one stop shop – because it basically cuts and sweeps and leaves it. That’s all it can do.

“It is expensive, it’s £180,000 for the basic model. It can travel at up to 30kmph (19mph), but I definitely wouldn’t want to be going round a corner in it at 30kmph because of how high it is.

“It’s got some positives, it’s got some negatives. We are now evaluating what we would use it for in the future if we were going to use it and whether or not we would purchase or utilise it as a rental.

“I will only allow us to start getting any pieces of equipment if they’re going to be useful to our arsenal, to make sure that we can do the best job as quickly and efficiently as possible.”

In response to Councillor Williams’ comments a JCB spokesperson said: “The Pothole Pro marketing message from launch has always been ‘Cut, Crop and Clean with One Machine – just add tar’. It is the only machine in the market to be able to achieve these three key processes.

“Our extensive research with local authorities has shown that the most laborious, costly and inefficient element of defect repair is the preparation, not the reinstatement. Therefore, it has always been the preparation that we have set to conquer with the JCB Pothole Pro.

“The amount of potholes and larger defects fixed by JCB Pothole Pro customers has been astounding. Our customers right across the United Kingdom, from large county councils, to smaller city councils have reported payback within months, rather than years. It has been a revolution within the highways sector.

“Stoke-on-Trent City Council, which purchased a Pothole Pro 12 months ago, has seen an incredible transformation in its highways department. The council has now repaired a staggering 7.4 years’ worth of defects in just 12 months with the machine and has seen their cost-per-defect significantly reduce, all while focussing on permanent repairs.

“In fact, the machine is able to complete these three steps in eight minutes, compared to one hour with traditional repair methods. With the JCB Pothole Pro preparing defects in a matter of minutes before moving on to the next pothole, it enables the reinstatement team to focus all of their efforts into adding the tar – the easy bit.

“As a result, defects are fixed in a fraction of the time, at a lower cost-per-pothole, whilst significantly reducing the health and safety risk for operatives.

“Unfortunately, the locations chosen for Staffordshire County Council’s trial resulted in the machine only working for an average of 2 hours per day. Trials with other councils saw the machine working a full shift and up to 56 potholes repaired in a single day.

“This is the only machine in the market that can ‘cut, crop and clean with one machine’. The repair methods used today by Staffordshire County Council require multiple machines to undertake these different processes. The JCB Pothole Pro is fully road legal at 40kph, which means it can get to site without the need for additional costly transport.”