Residents travelling along Carlton Hill had been suffering from poor road conditions for months after a weakening section of road, near the Cromwell Street junction and the Tesco Superstore, got progressively worse.
The bottom of Carlton Hill had been getting into an increasingly worse state since the turn of the year, with problems first reported before Christmas 2025.
Nottinghamshire County Council, the authority responsible for highways, announced an emergency £2 million pot of money in February this year to tackle roads across the county in the most dire state.
Part of the cash was used to resurface the section of Carlton Hill, where machines left the site last Monday (20 April).
Works across dozens of sites started in March and are due to be completed soon but, since then, the authority has announced a further “record-level” £181.25 million in 2026/27 to start fixing Nottinghamshire’s deteriorated roads.
Nearby resident Sharron said: “It was awful, there was pothole after pothole in that whole section, from the bottom of Southdale Road to just past the Texaco garage.
“Literally, you were swerving to avoid everything, and every morning it was like being on a fair ride. It was awful – now it’s a dream to drive on.”
The pothole situation had been so bleak on Carlton Hill that Sharron said drivers “couldn’t not hit one” as the damage was close together.
Lindsey Greenwood, who has also lived near the works for four years, said the section of road was in a state “well before Christmas” but was at its worst from February.
She said: “There was a lot of swerving, there was a lot of deep holes – horrendous.
“This junction has always been dodgy at the bottom [of Southdale Road], so to try and get out while cars are trying to worm their way around all the holes, it was definitely the worst round here.”
Ms Greenwood said she often had to drive onto the other side of the road to avoid any road damage.
Speaking on the council’s boosts of money for road fixes, she said: “It’s good but then you just think what are we going to cut corners on to use that money on? … You can’t fix one thing without causing problems elsewhere, can you?”
One man living nearby said one particular pothole on the road was so significant that a cone had been placed in it.
He said: “Ever since Reform have been in, things have been 100 per cent better – it’s nice to see things being done. Since the resurfacing, it’s safer.”
In February, Reform-led Nottinghamshire County Council announced it would be purchasing at least two JCB Pothole Pro machines to help with tackling the declining state of the county’s roads.
Cllr Barton recently said he expects the JCBs to be out on the roads within the next two weeks.
The machines have been trialled by neighbouring Reform-run authorities in Derbyshire and Lincolnshire and typically cost around £165,000 each.
The new machines will be able to complete 200 to 250 square metres of patching repairs each day, which then prepares roads for surface dressing.
