00:00Frustrated motorists facing repair bills of up to £1,000 from Kent's pothole-ridden roads
00:05may see relief, as Kent County Council announced in July a £67 million investment
00:11to fix potholes and resurface roads.
00:14So I'm outside Thordian Wood Road in Herne Bay,
00:18finding out just what exactly Kent County Council is doing
00:22about these potholes scattered throughout roads in Kent.
00:26Thordian Wood Road wasn't selected by chance.
00:28It was chosen by the local highways team in Canterbury
00:32after reviewing public reports and assessing the condition of the road surface.
00:37This road was full of potholes, no point coming along and patching them, so we've resurfaced it.
00:41If you've got one pothole in your street, we're going to come along and we're going to cut it out and patch it.
00:46Unfortunately, there's going to be some disruption.
00:48You can't close a road like this without disruption.
00:52It's going to happen, but we will do it as quickly and as efficiently as we can.
00:56What I want is the residents, more residents, to go on the KCC website and report the pothole.
01:02You report it, we'll fix it, but only in order of severity.
01:08You know, a crack in the road doesn't constitute a pothole.
01:11A big hole, a dangerous hole, does.
01:14And that is very... we're being more proactive rather than reactive.
01:17KCC prioritises roads based on safety, needs, traffic volume and, importantly, the views of residents and local communities.
01:26I think priority... more priority needs to be given to rural roads because, yes, they are rural, but they are used prolifically.
01:35I think, as well, local residents would really appreciate it more, like, if, you know, they're seeing, you know, potholes there already for, like, a month or two instead of, like, a year or two.
01:44I think that would... I think people would be very pleased that they feel like their money that they're paying for their accounts tax is going somewhere.
01:50I don't think it has improved because, especially in the area where I live, which is about the Rochester-Chatham area, where there's still a lot of potholes and even with repairs and everything, after a few weeks, it's still back to the same old conditions.
02:05New data reveals the cost of pothole damage is once more on the increase. Local garages are seeing more related cases every week.
02:13I would say impact, we probably see one every day that is causeway impact, whether that's a pothole, maybe a kerb, to a tyre.
02:22To wheels, it's probably maybe a couple of weeks. We'll see, like, a crack or we'll see a buckle, but it's generally the tyre that takes the brunt of whatever you've hit.
02:32Over the last, sort of, couple of years, it's a lot more. It's normally the first thing we check, whereas a couple of years ago it would be a puncture of some description,
02:41but now it's, we check the wheel first.
02:43This wheel shows the damage caused by hitting a pothole. Repair costs can vary depending on the severity, wheel size and can reach up to £1,000.
02:53Peter Osborne added, we've already repaired more than 12,000 potholes this year, but this isn't just about numbers, it's about trust.
03:02People want to know their concerns are being heard and acted on.
03:06Maisie Walker for KMTV, Herne Bay.
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