£1 million Northumberland County Council programme to prevent potholes and flooding gets underway

James Robinson

28 November 2024 at 8:31 am·2-min read

Pothole patching in Northumberland — -Credit: (Image: Copyright Unknown)

"Intensive" work to prevent flooding and damage on Northumberland's road network is now underway.

Northumberland County Council has come under increasing pressure to take action after last year's "exceptionally" wet winter caused chaos on the county's roads. Drainage systems such as ditches and gullies were blocked, with roads suffering from increased flooding as a result.

Cold temperatures meant the surface water would freeze, damaging road surfaces and creating potholes. In October, the council's cabinet agreed plans to use external contractors to carry out an 18-week programme of ditch cleaning, channel sweeping and gully cleansing.

The programme is expected to cost more than £1 million. At Wednesday's meeting of the council's Communities and Place scrutiny committee, officials explained how the issue was being tackled.

Service director Paul Jones said: "We have had over £1 million allocated from the severe weather reserve to address some of the issues we saw during the particularly wet weather last year. Each of the four highways areas has been allocated money from the pot.

"We have additional gully tankers, additional large road sweepers and teams are undertaking ditch clearing. That programme is ongoing at the moment."

Kris Westerby, the council's highways delivery manager, explained how data utilised to save money and improve the council's performance. Gullies that are visited on multiple occasions will now be identified and prioritised for further investigation and work to fix any underlying issues.

He said: "We have built a new system to map gully cleaning that will save us around £20,000. That will get us a few more gullies cleaned and pay wages. We know exactly what is going on in everyone's patch and ward at any one time."

The programme of work is expected to continue for between 18 and 20 weeks, totalling £1,070,856. Coun Mark Mather, who represents the Wooler ward, praised the work that had already been carried out.

He said: "It has made a real difference in the north of the county. This has been a really clever use of money, it has fixed a lot of problems caused by last winter. Residents are definitely seeing a difference."

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