00:00 Scarring our roads and having the power to kill our cars.
00:06 And some say each year they are even getting worse.
00:10 Nowhere more so in Kent than Tenterton.
00:13 I've been living here for 44 years and what I've noticed over the last 44 years
00:18 gradually it's been getting worse and worse and I think the last few years it's been absolutely dreadful.
00:23 They're very, very dangerous at the moment. There's so many of them.
00:27 While you're trying to avoid the potholes, you're not concentrating on the road.
00:31 It is actually really rough on the roads. I've had a few burst tyres on my car.
00:35 I've only been back for a few months here.
00:37 When we were driving here I was already complaining to him about the English roads.
00:41 So they are much worse compared to the roads in the Netherlands.
00:44 The County Council say they have seen a five-fold increase in the number of pothole reports.
00:50 That's 26,000 in the three months to April.
00:54 I would say that we are getting where we need to be from what was an extremely difficult position at the end of the winter.
01:03 Kent County Council is having to tighten their spending.
01:06 They say their highways are in a phase of managed decline.
01:11 For the council to repair a pothole it needs to be deeper than 10 centimetres.
01:16 But locals say roads in this town are starting to become covered in shallow potholes.
01:22 Now these potholes might not be the biggest on Kent's roads.
01:26 They're probably not going to pop any tyres.
01:28 They have been reported but Kent County Council says they're not going to be able to get out until autumn to replace them.
01:34 Which locals worry they are just going to get bigger and bigger and then start popping tyres.
01:39 The solution seems to be what I call this patch and dash approach.
01:42 Which is the KCC comes and fills them temporarily.
01:45 Sometimes that solution lasts just a few weeks.
01:48 In the end we've got to get a really solid grip on road maintenance and properly resurface all these roads.
01:55 That's the challenge for KCC but a particular challenge for the government to fund this properly.
02:00 Our road network is an absolutely vital strategic resource.
02:04 And we cannot afford to just give up and put it into so-called managed decline.
02:09 The local authority here has received £6 million from central government.
02:15 And a spokesperson for Kent County Council says highway teams have worked tirelessly to respond to them.
02:21 And are carrying out prevention work.
02:24 They go on to say the extra funding has allowed them to appoint a further six contractors.
02:30 These potholes should be fixed by autumn.
02:33 But then comes the wet and freezing weather.
02:36 Prime condition for potholes to form.
02:38 A misery for motorists and a financial challenge for the county council.
02:43 to Gabriel Morris for KMTV in Tinston.
02:45 (whooshing)
