Wokingham Borough Council is exploring innovative ways of filling potholes, a meeting heard.

Andy Glencross, the council’s assistant director of Highways, said jet patcher machines, which swiftly fill and seal the potholes, are used to repair many of Wokingham’s weather-beaten roads, but the council is always looking for other cost-effective solutions.

At a meeting of the council’s Community and Corporate Overview and Scrutiny Committee on September 2, he was also asked if recycled plastic was being used to repair the roads, following a successful trial in the Welsh county of Flintshire.

Mr Glencross said: “There’s a lot of innovation around pothole fixing. The government has just announced a scheme to look at innovation in pothole fixing.

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“I don’t think we’ve used the recycled plastic yet. We’ve been using a slightly older innovation, called a jet patch.

“The conventional thing to do is take a big saw, saw a square hole and fill it with tarmac. But with modern machines, you don’t need to cut a shape.

“You just fill the hole with blow-in tarmac that seals the surface. We have looked at some innovation in that sense.

“We also have an innovation group in our highways team and we’re looking at innovation across the piste in highways infrastructure.

The Conservative-run council has promised to invest £8 million in improving Wokingham’s roads – including £1 million for pothole repairs – in 2020/21 and earmarked around 100 roads for resurfacing.

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It is also adding micro-asphalt and surface dressing to about 50 roads, to seal them from water, prevent skidding and extend the life of each road by up to seven years.

During the meeting, councillor Graham Howe (Conservative), asked whether Wokingham’s £124 million highways maintenance strategy could be more proactive, instead of “reactive”.

Cllr Pauline Jorgensen, executive member for transport, said: “We’ve doubled the amount of money spent on roads and we’re still trying to catch up with what we’d really like to do.

“It would be a nice idea to programme stuff, so you can do it long in advance, and understand what’s coming, but I’m not sure it’s feasible. We have to do it on priority.”