Stoke-on-Trent City Council has pledged to carry out 6,000 pothole fixes and other road repairs in the next six months.
The campaign was launched this week with the authority looking to restore its highways, which, it says, have been battered by heavy rain and bad weather conditions over the past winter.
More than 6,000 complaints from drivers and pedestrians have been received by the city council in the past 12 months and now the authority is aiming to take full advantage of the drier weather to tackle the blight of potholes and other road-related issues.
Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for City Pride, Enforcement and Sustainability, Councillor Amjad Wazir, said: “Enough is enough. We have to do something about our roads and we have been listening to the concerns of our residents who are telling us where the problems lie.
“Now is the time to act as the weather gets warmer and it becomes easier to permanently patch-up the problems on our roads that are literally driving our residents mad when they’re out and about.
“The new campaign is called DRIVE, which stands for Deliver, Restore, Invest, Versatile and Effective. The acronym sets out our promises for the campaign and how we approach it.”
The campaign has been backed by social media influencer Highway Harper (real name James Harper).
James is a highways team manager with the council and has seen some of his posts about the world of highways attract up to 4.5 million viewers.
His repsonsibilities include overseeing the use of the JCB Pothole Pro – a revolutionary machine which can repair potholes four times quicker than standard methods.
Earlier this year, Daily Focus reported that figures released by the AA demonstrated that pothole damage to vehicles has hit a five year high.
The research, released on National Pothole Day, reveals that the motoring organisation dealt with 631,852 pothole related incidents in 2023.
AA President Edmund King said: “Currently, we often have a vicious circle of: pothole formed; damage caused; pothole patched; pothole reappears with more damage caused – when what we need are more permanent repairs.”
