00:00Potholes. Every driver's nightmare. Road damage like this is frustrating motorists and wrecking
00:07vehicles around the county, with new data showing Kent and Medway are some of the worst
00:12affected areas in the UK.
00:14The AA were called out to over 600,000 pothole-related incidents last year and here at Lepsons Tyres
00:21in Gillingham, they're no strangers to the damage that potholes can cause.
00:25The actual alloy wheel is the main thing that usually gets damaged from pothole damage.
00:31So this one here has been damaged and it's been bent. It's got a crack in the actual wheel
00:36itself. So there is a crack. Now the crack is, it only looks small to you, but what would
00:42happen is the actual air will seep out of the tyre and the tyre will go flat.
00:47This was the case for driving instructor Martin Thatcher, who was left over 500 pounds out
00:52of pocket when a pothole deflated two of his tyres and buckled two wheels during a lesson.
00:58We have to maintain our cars through servicing and tyre changes when they're worn down,
01:03for instance. But when these things happen, then it takes us off the road where we have
01:07the counselling lessons because we can't get to that paper, we've got to rearrange lessons
01:10and so on. So it costs us time and money at the end of the day.
01:14Kent County Council say they repaired 23,000 potholes between May and November last year,
01:19while Medway Council have repaired just over 8,000 since 2024.
01:24However, the Department for Transport has still given both areas an amber rating for pothole
01:30repairs in its latest assessment, which locals aren't surprised by.
01:34It seems really weird in this kind of what, 21st century that we can't get a handle on
01:38it and solve it fairly quickly.
01:39I don't think filling each one in works much because it just falls apart again.
01:45Chatham Hill, it looked great and they did the whole lot and it looked brilliant because
01:49it was terrible. But if you go there now, after a year, it's already starting to break up.
01:55Today, on National Pothole Day, the Pothole Partnership are calling for an end to patchwork
02:00repairs in favour of more permanent solutions.
02:03So what we're saying at the partnership is that if you have a longer term planned approach
02:09and if those actual repairs are guaranteed for five years, it will concentrate the mines and
02:17in the longer term would actually save money and disruption because every time you fill in
02:23the road, it causes congestion.
02:26A spokesperson for Medway Council said the council has significantly improved its programme
02:30of road repairs over the past year to move away from temporary individual pothole repairs
02:36to a more effective approach to longer term patching, which improves the quality and lifespan
02:41of the road surface.
02:43They continued, where we must plug a defect to eliminate the immediate risk to the travelling
02:47public, it is still followed up with a permanent patch.
02:51Nevertheless, the call to introduce a five-year warranty for repairs would be challenging in
02:56light of the budget available for road maintenance.
02:59Kent County Council were also contacted for comment.
03:02As the winter weather continues to batter Kent's roads, the cost for motorists continues to mount.
03:09Sophie Denny for KMTV
