Staffordshire’s JCB Pothole Pro is on the move around Staffordshire, helping to fix potholes and prepare roads for surface treatments.

The machine has recently been on A519 Newcastle Road in Hanchurch, and will be moving up and down the county over the next few months to help with Staffordshire’s spring push on pothole repairs.

It will be involved in ‘pre-patching’ and other defect repairs. Pre-patching is where potholes and defects are patched up ahead of being covered by a road surface treatment, designed to prolong the life of the road.

The JCB Pothole Pro machine is a unique 3-in-1 machine, designed to repair potholes in an average time of eight minutes.

The county council will be carrying out preventative maintenance on more than 450 roads across Staffordshire in 2024/25, totalling around 1.5 million square metres.

This is all part of the £50 million investment in maintaining and improving Staffordshire’s highways over the next three years, alongside a total of £53 million being spent on a range of major projects, vital road improvements and general road maintenance in 24/25.

As we move into warmer weather, the highways winter gritting season comes to an end as we focus more on structural and preventative maintenance.

Highways crews have worked around the clock throughout the winter period to keep Staffordshire’s roads safe, gritting the equivalent of 80,000 miles. 

From October, 64 drivers rolled out in their gritters to treat the county’s road network when temperatures plunged and snowy spells hit.  

Amongst those drivers were the Moorlands’ hill contractors, who were on hand to treat higher grounds that often see the worst of icy weather. 

Even though the winter was mild and very wet, more than 13,800 tonnes of salt was used to treat 80,670 miles of Staffordshire’s roads across the entire period. That is enough salt to fill 4,600 swimming pools.

Crews have kept Staffordshire moving, ensured we could travel to work safely, and take our children to and from school when adverse weather hit. 

With temperatures starting to warm up, we can now ramp up our pothole repairs and look ahead to the string of major road reconstruction schemes we have planned for this year. 

Work is continuing on a major resurfacing scheme in Werrington.

The works, to the A52 Ash Bank Road, started on 22 January and are due to finish in May.

The £525,000 resurfacing works have seen teams replacing ironwork and damaged kerbs, and resurfacing the carriageway and pavement. Overnight resurfacing has already started, and will be carried out until between the hours of 7pm to 6pm until works end on May 9.

Added to this, works to the nearby Cheddleton Heath Bridge have now finished. Costing £70,000, the works included repairing the bridge deck and refurbish the bridge, after it was discovered that the underside of the concrete bridge deck had deteriorated. Crews timed the works specifically to be carried out while the Churnet Valley Railway was closed for the winter season, and it is hoped that the refurbishment will extend the bridge's useful life for decades to come.

A regeneration project to improve roads, walking and cycling routes in Cannock town centre is progressing with a finish date scheduled for early May.

The scheme involves improving the Beecroft Road roundabout, including A34 Ringway and Park Lane. This includes installing a new road surface, new pedestrian guard rails, kerbs and footway repairs.

All work on the Beecroft Road roundabout phase is taking place overnight between 7.30pm to 6am to minimise disruption. During these times, the A34 will be reduced to one lane in each direction. Overnight closures will also be needed on Park Road and Beecroft Road during the works period.

The roundabout scheme follows the completion of work to create new shared cycle routes, upgraded crossing points and widened footways in Church Street and Ringway, as well as a new link from Allport Road to Beecroft Road car park. The scheme complements the wider regeneration plans for the town.

People travelling through Cannock town centre while work is taking place are being advised to allow additional journey time.

Anyone wanting further information can find out more on the project webpage.