“Roads are only as good as their drainage”, if you have worked with roads you may have heard this saying and if you have ever driven on a road you will have seen a pothole or even damaged your car due to one, but what do these things have in common?


First we need to understand how potholes form. They are caused when water gets into the road and permeates through cracks in the surface. 


Through freezing and thawing it will then expand and contract causing more cracks and weakening the road further until, eventually, the weight of the overhead traffic forces it to cave in, creating a pothole.


This is exacerbated in Spring when fluctuating temperatures and high rainfall make some roads look lunar. And hence the saying “a road is only as good as it’s drainage” as the better the drainage the less water stays on the surface of the road and the less gets into the road.


Nevertheless potholes still form but how do we fix them?
Well talking to John Boocock – “there are 4 important things when fixing a pothole: cleaning out, sharp edges, good seal and good compression”


Firstly the pothole needs some sharp edges, on large roads this is done with a jackhammer however people who do this voluntarily like John can just hammer around the edge.


Then loose rubble needs to be scraped out or blown out from the pothole in order to avoid gaps later and having to fix it again.
Next volunteers use a seal (usually semi-dissolved tar which can be sprayed into the hole) or if it is a major pothole being fixed crews can rely on good compression.


Finally the tarmac should be filled to a depth of 50mm and 20-25mm above the road surface and then volunteers like John simply hammer it down and crews use other equipment.


However it should be said that while John started in 1995 working as Parish Clark and thereby knew how to fix potholes, recently when fixing potholes (4 in Barton recreational ground and half a dozen in Kings Grove) he has gotten into trouble as people have told him “he has no authority”, “no insurance” or simply that it is dangerous. Therefore when fixing a pothole you should always know exactly how and have authority to do it.


One interesting view on potholes was also demonstrated by Freya Lundskaer-Nielsen – “Potholes hold a fairly unique position in bringing together communities as a common point of hatred”.