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John Burr speaks out
about Kent's potholes

Kent County Council is preparing to
allocate a further £1m towards repairing the county’s potholes.

Council leader Paul Carter today
urged the seven contractors engaged under the county’s new
"find-and-fix" programme to increase the number of gangs they had
working after hearing reports that the problem was worse than
expected.

Most of the contractors covering
the county’s 12 districts said they would not be able to complete
the areas allocated to them by the initial deadline of the end of
July.

But Cllr Carter said the county was
prepared to increase the budget to £3.5m to ensure the work was
done as soon as possible.

In the four weeks since the new
working methods were introduced, the contractors have completed
repairs to 400 roads, fixing 3,323 potholes and patching 12,425 sq
metres of carriageway.

The find-and-fix scheme involves
the contractors tackling all the problems in a road, before moving
on to another road, rather than darting about fixing holes on an ad
hoc basis.

One-off emergency repairs are still
being done by the county’s main contractors Ringway, but the
find-and-fix teams are implementing only permanent repairs on a
systematic basis.

John Burr, the director of Kent
Highways Services, said: "Kent County Council is absolutely
determined. We will complete this process and we will improve the
condition of Kent’s roads."