FEATURE
POTHOLE REPAIRS WITHOUT PITFALLS
The economics of road surface maintenance have left roads and car parks crumbling, but pothole specialists RENOO argues that infrared technology is making small, permanent repairs cheaper, simpler and more convenient for property managers.
Following the icy assault of the ‘Beast from the East’, which swept across the UK this winter, the discovery of two million new potholes has prompted the government to release £100m in additional funding to assist in repairs to help stave off a growing threat to road users and the resulting liabilities. A threat made all the more apparent by a recent RAC report, which highlighted that Q1 2018 was one of the worst quarters on record for pothole damage. The number of breakdowns attributed to damage caused by potholes and poor quality road surfaces was almost doubled.
The same problems also have a human cost: In 2017/18, £7.3m was successfully claimed by individuals against councils in England and Wales for road defects and 82% of this was a result of potholes.
“Filling a pothole with gravel
will not deal with the structural issues that are undermining the strength of the road.”
While this was a particularly severe winter, the degree of damage to road surfaces only compounded an existing issue caused by the ongoing under investment in road maintenance across the nation. Indeed, the Asphalt Industry Alliance’s Annual Local Authority Road Maintenance Survey, warned that a decade of neglect to the UK’s road network caused through annual shortfalls in maintenance budgets had racked up a liability of around £9.3bn.
While such spasmodic cycles of underinvestment, followed by bursts of emergency spending, are all too familiar when we look at government spending, the truth is that many private organisations also take a similar approach to maintaining the road surfaces in their own (literal) backyards. Across the UK, the harsh winter conditions have been equally taxing on car parks and private roads – and have equally revealed the risks of lax maintenance.
The difficulty in maintaining good
quality surfaces Neglect from private landlords can seem short-sighted especially because, unlike in the public sector where political considerations can influence spending choices,
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pragmatism usually comes first in business. However, that same pragmatism is the main reason why damaged road surfaces can be left to gradually worsen to the point where potholes become a significant issue, as the prevalent economics of maintaining tarmac incentivise less frequent repairs.
Potholes form when water penetrates a road surface and freezes it expands and pushes out a cavity beneath the surface. As the ice thaws, this cavity then caves in to create a pothole. Water can penetrate via even the tiniest cracks in a surface and can thus become a recurring nuisance as repaired surfaces often repeatedly fail in the same areas as the over-banded bitumen becomes a point of weakness and then failure. For this reason, repeatedly patching a surface can seem a thankless task. Filling a pothole with gravel or simply laying a fresh topping of tarmac will not deal with the structural issues that are undermining the strength of the road so that within months, sometimes weeks, potholes carry on appearing across the surface.
Small repairs can also be disproportionately disruptive, particularly in high traffic areas. For example, to carry out repairs to a single pothole in a car park will still require a large amount of working space to cut out and repair the damaged area. Repairs also require several hours before the surface is ready for use.
A further challenge is the relatively high cost of carrying out smaller incremental repairs, particularly as tarmac is generally sold in tonne batches. As a result, small pothole repairs are often fitted in by contractors after a larger job to use up remaining materials. This use of less fresh tarmac also results in lower quality repairs that are more likely to fail. If this lack of quality seems surprising, it is worth considering that the more professional contractors in the industry are predominantly focused on roads and highways. There are therefore few services that are well suited to commercial properties (even though these landlords account for millions of square feet of highly trafficked hard standing tarmac areas).
Infrared makes it easier Ultimately, waiting longer to replace a larger area can seem a more pragmatic solution, especially when resurfacing the entire section of road or a car park is a better way to prevent recurring potholes. However, the liabilities arising from personal injury and vehicle damage remain unaddressed. Due to the lack of effective solutions for smaller scale repairs, even the most
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