Trial of pothole busting machine
A year-long assessment of the latest pothole-battling machine is underway in Lincolnshire.
Lincolnshire County Council has started live-trialling the latest JCB Pothole Pro machine to see if it can help improve the county’s road network.
It is advertised as being able to work on potholes with a high degree of accuracy so is being put through its paces on a variety of roads in Lincolnshire,
Leader Cllr Sean Matthews and his deputy Cllr Rob Gibson joined members of the Highways Scrutiny committee to see the Pothole Pro in action along a section of the A158 near Bullington.
Cllr Matthews said: “This trial is exactly the sort of thing we should be doing in the county council Highways service. This is a real-world example of something that could have a benefit to local roads. LCC officers are running this trial and will be feeding back to us the details of what they find as a result of the work programme for the Pothole Pro.
“I am very happy that we’re already seeing this sort of thing happening for Lincolnshire. Simply put, we don’t know if we can find a way to make this machine work for us, but we are here giving it an honest try in a new way and – if it can work in our part of the country - then we will have found something to really help with local roads.
“This machine has been trialled before at LCC, but that was a number of years ago. That was a short-term test on rural locations that, after just nine weeks, ruled it out of operation. What LCC officers, the same officers who were involved in the previous trial, have done is come up with a different way of running this trial that could really add something to our ability to sort out the roads.
“That’s got to be worth a try. And if it works, or if it turns out not to be a benefit for us, then we will know either way and will carry on trying everything we can to sort out the roads for the residents of Lincolnshire.”
Jonathan Evans, Head of Highways Client at the council added: “This year-long trial is substantially different to a previous trial with similar machinery that we tested for nine weeks in 2021.
“This time, the trial is focused on ‘Reactive Patch’ repairs in addition to the normal potholes. Later in the trial we also intend to explore the wider aspects of what the machine can do with other fault types that the Highway Service need to deal with.
“People will see the machine in action across the county. It will be operating with a Traffic Management crew to keep traffic moving, an 18-tonne hot box, a waste lorry and a ride-on roller. There will also be a crew that will do the reinstatement part of the process as the Pothole Pro only does the excavation.
“The trial will be Countywide, however - from the lessons we learned from the first trial – we are changing our approach. We will be giving the machine bigger patches of road to complete, so that we can achieve higher output from it.
“The Pothole Pro will move between LCC Highways depots relative to the Reactive Patch work schedule and will be very visible to road users as we put it through its paces.”