Highways crews navigate storms and floods to fix over 1,000 potholes in Essex

Highways crews battled storms, cold snaps and flooding to repair over 1,000 potholes in the last month.

More than 1,000 potholes were fixed by highways crews over the past month, despite extreme weather seeing them work on all fronts to keep Essex moving safely.  

Essex Highways registered 1,221 pothole repairs in January – an increase from December – including just under 700 on priority roads and 530 on local roads.

It follows a 90% increase in pothole repairs across 2023 compared to the previous year after £17.4 million of additional funding was committed to Essex Highways by Essex County Council. This included an extra £5.4 million for pothole repairs from the Department for Transport.

The funding meant Essex Highways could hire 11 more crews to carry out significantly more pothole repairs across the county.

Councillor Tom Cunningham, Cabinet Member for Highways, Infrastructure and Sustainable Transport at Essex County Council, said: "It's been a challenging month for Essex Highways. Storms, flooding and cold temperatures have really pushed highways capability and staff to the maximum.

"Despite the challenges faced, the hard work of Essex Highways has shone through. We can all see that fixing potholes and making travel safer remains a top priority for the council into 2024 and beyond."