British digger maker JCB has brought its brand new revolutionary pothole fixing machine to Cumbria in one of its first-ever demonstrations.
The company launched the PotholePro earlier this year - a machine that can repair a pothole in less than eight minutes, four times quicker than standard methods and at half the cost of current solutions.
The Cumbria demonstrations culminated today, Wednesday, March 31, after a three-day demonstration on the A66 – fixing 56 potholes in just one five hour shift.
Here in Cumbria, we have one of the biggest road networks in the UK to maintain and as well as a population of half a million people, we welcome up to 19 million visitors a year to the county. It's therefore essential that we keep our road network safe and the JCB PotholePro has demonstrated its ability to repair a pothole quickly and permanently, which makes it a great tool to have in your armour when maintaining the roads.
Councillor Keith Little | Cabinet Member for Highways and Transport
"The other massive benefit of the PotholePro is safety; for our employees, being in the cab of a machine is so much safer than being amongst the traffic."
Cumbria County Council already runs a fleet of JCB machines including backhoe loaders and Loadall telescopic handlers. The demonstration was arranged through the council and JCB dealer Scot JCB.
The launch of the PotholePro follows a vow from Chancellor Rishi Sunak last November to invest £1.6bn to fix potholes in Britain and ‘level-up’ uneven roads. Shock figures from the AA reveal more than £11bn-worth of potholes need repairing across the UK.
Tests with local authorities and contractors show the JCB PotholePro can complete a pothole repair in less than eight minutes – equivalent to up to 250 square meters per day and 700 potholes per month. With a 40km/h travel speed, the machine can rapidly relocate between sites without additional transport costs.
The PotholePro allows the contractor or local authority to cut the defect, crop the edges and clean the hole with one machine – mechanising jobs traditionally done by pothole gangs and delivering up to a 50% cut in daily costs. It is equipped with a 600mm wide planer and integrated dust suppression system, enabling the operator to plane a full carriageway from the kerb, without repositioning. The machine also comes with a sweeper/bucket and hydraulic cropping tool, allowing a uniform hole to be prepared by the operator from the comfort their cab.
Councils get a request to fix a pothole every 46 seconds and more than £8.1 million was paid out in compensation to drivers last year for vehicle damage caused by potholes.