The owner of a tyre business in Nottingham says his workshop is having to do at least five repairs or replacements every day due to roads filled with potholes.
Shayne Demera, the owner of Treadmark in Trent Lane, has called on councils to fix the roads effectively, with dozens of people turning up at his workshop every week with pothole-related damage to their wheels.
According to the RAC, it is estimated that, on average, there are around six potholes per mile on council-controlled roads across England and Wales.
Pothole-related breakdowns have also been increasing year on year.
“We are doing at least five wheels a day,” he said.
“Repairs like cracks, bends, buckles, popped tyres, people stranded at the side of roads. We are going out to them, helping put spare wheels on the car just to get them mobile again, just because of the holes in the roads.
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“Over the last year and a half to two years, we’ve just seen it expand, the work expanding within the repairing side of the business.
“It is sad. We would rather not repair a wheel. It does weaken the structure of the wheel, but it does get people out of a sticky situation.
“Don’t temporarily fix it. Take the road up and lay it properly. You see the council lads out there, no disrespect to them because they are just doing their job, but they are just filling the holes and tapping it down. You can’t do that. With the moisture under that, it is just going to crumble.
“It is really bad. It is definitely solvable, but they have got to solve it in the right way. It needs taking back up in sections, bit by bit. You can’t just fill them. I know this because our old yard had a lot of holes there. We used to fill it with tarmac and it would last six months, and that isn’t a road.
“Councils are wasting money. They may as well do it correctly and do it once.”
His comments come after a number of Nottinghamshire MPs jointly wrote a letter to Nottinghamshire County Council’s chief executive, Adrian Smith, calling for an urgent meeting to discuss the state of the county’s roads.
“With roads in such poor condition, our constituents are seeking reassurance that swift action will be taken to address their concerns,” the letter says.
Mick Barton (Ref), the leader of the council, said in February: “We’ve got a big problem with potholes and the state of the roads at the minute. We know it is from a couple of decades of lack of funding, but we are getting on with the job. We know we’ve got to put it right.
“We are looking at new equipment which will hopefully give us good news in the next couple of weeks. This spring, we are starting a full programme to fix the roads, with at least 10 teams carrying out hot-boxing and permanent fixes. We’ve got a full programme of works next winter as well, but you will see some massive improvements this spring, summer and autumn.”
In the city, Nottingham City Council has started resurfacing work on a stretch of Queens Drive, a key route into and out of the city that has been plagued by potholes.
Councillor Linda Woodings, the city council’s executive member for regional development, growth and transport, said the scheme is being delivered with a £350,000 allocation from the council’s Local Transport Plan under the 2025/26 Highways Planned Maintenance Programme, which prioritises works using a data-led approach based on engineering inspections.
Councillor Woodings added that, since May 2023, the council has resurfaced 250 roads, improved more than 100 footpaths and filled over 37,000 potholes across the city.
The East Midlands Combined County Authority, which gets money from the Government to give out to member councils, announced in January it would be allocating £121m to its four authorities for highways maintenance, with £8m for both Derby and Nottingham, £46.9m for Nottinghamshire and £58m for Derbyshire.
The county council added it is planning to invest an additional £20.4 million in revenue funding.
Under the Government’s new local road maintenance ratings, both Nottinghamshire and Nottingham were given an amber rating for condition and best practice, but green for spending.
