Nottinghamshire County Council’s brand new JCB Pothole Pro machines will be working on the county’s roads within the next two weeks, says the council leader.
Back in February, Nottinghamshire County Council announced it would be purchasing at least two JCB Pothole Pro machines to help tackle the declining state of the county’s roads.
The machines have been trialled by neighbouring Reform-run authorities in Derbyshire and Lincolnshire and typically cost around £165,000.
The council has recently embarked on critical highway projects, announcing £2 million to go towards emergency repairs across dozens of sites in February and its £122.5 million pot for phase one of fixing roads, which launched in early April.
Council leader Mick Barton said the new machines will be used for around 16 square metres of patching repairs, which then prepares roads for surface dressing.
He said: “Once we’ve patched them all and got them all into a satisfactory condition, then we’ll do the surface dressing.
“They [the machines] will definitely be on the roads within the next two weeks. Maybe the end of next week, but we’ll quantify that in the next few days.”
The leader said once the machines are out on the roads, they will be used every day.
He said: “They’ll be able to do 200 to 250 metres a day and we’re going to judge that every day, how much they do, on a weekly basis and monthly basis to make sure we’re getting value for money.”
Road conditions are known to worsen during winter months, when cold and wet weather can chip away at roads or more easily undo any temporary works or patching.
Cllr Barton says the next winter period will be different, with highway teams working through all seasons, even laying hot tarmac during winter.
Nottinghamshire County Council’s cabinet also approved the authority’s ‘phase two’ works in a meeting on Thursday, adding millions more pounds to its £122.5 million highways pot for 2026/27 in phase one.
An extra £58.75 million will be pumped into the county’s highway network for 2026/27, bringing the total spend on roads to £181.25 million. When factoring in the £2 million emergency works earlier this year, that figure rises to more than £183 million.
Speaking in Thursday’s meeting on the further cash boost, Cllr Barton said: “But it’s not over now, we’re going to Parliament in the summer and will try to get some more money because we’ve got to now prepare for next year.
“We’ve got over 130 people working on the roads at the minute. We’ve got the eight crews out at the moment doing the first-time fixes and two more starting in a few weeks’ time.
“The game changer for me is the 12 months of the year they’re going to be doing that and that will make a big impact next winter. We’re working on next winter’s programme already.”
Cllr Rory Green, cabinet member for children and families, said: “This year we’ve seen record-breaking responses to pothole reports, higher reports.
“This is for the people and areas like Ashfield, that some of us represent, that have been abandoned for years.”
Both phases of spending should lead to the authority’s highways works backlog being reduced by nearly £100 million, from its peak of £414 million to an estimated £317 million, the council says.
The boost of cash comes after a September 2025 survey found about 38 per cent of the county’s roads in ‘poor condition’, along with more than half of all road markings being in ‘poor’ or ‘very poor’ condition.
