Pothole treatment and repair

Repair techniques

Hampshire County Council's highways team have various techniques to repair potholes.

Dragon patchers

Dragon patchers (also known as spray injection machines) repair large areas of carriageway that are considered a safety issue and focus and repair areas that are deteriorating but aren't yet a safety issue.

Infrared repairing

Infrared repairing is a technique that uses infrared heaters to soften the existing asphalt around a defect, so it can be mixed with a rejuvenating agent and then pressed back into place. This method creates a seamless, durable repair, that can be completed quickly with minimal traffic disruption.

Infill repairs

Infill repairs involve cleaning the base of the pothole area, sealing with bitumen (a black, sticky substance derived from crude oil), filling with repair material, either hot or cold-lay asphalt, and packing down the material to ensure it is level. This quick process helps restore the surface and remove the hazard.

Treatment types

Surface dressing

Surface dressing is used where the surface is in reasonably good condition, but needs some quick, overall improvement which seals the surface and stops water penetrating the surface. A large area can be covered very quickly at a relatively low cost.

Micro surfacing

Micro surfacing is a slightly more durable process which places a thin layer of a complete new surface on the road. It takes longer to cover a given area than surface dressing, but is used where roads are busier, and the road needs more shaping.

Machine resurfacing

Machine resurfacing is where the existing surface is completely removed and a new depth of surface is laid as a replacement. This treatment is used where the road is badly worn and carries heavy traffic.

Joint and crack sealing

Joint and crack sealing helps to prevent water getting into and underneath the road surface.

Our longer-term maintenance programme

When multiple potholes and other defects have occurred in a specific location, it is likely that the highway structure needs more extensive and costly repairs in order to extend its life.

As well as carrying out pothole and other road defect repairs, we have an extensive programme of planned essential work to ensure Hampshire's roads are more resilient to the effects of wetter, freezing weather and heavy traffic.

These works include carriageway and footway resurfacing, surface treatments and structural drainage repairs.

Owing to the materials we used to maintain and fix roads, much of this work is dependent on the weather being mainly dry and not too hot or too cold; so the schedule of work can be subject to change.

Engineers regularly carry out electronic scanning on main roads and visually inspect other roads. They will then use this information, together with other information such as the amount of reactive maintenance that has taken place, to help identify the priority areas that need work.

Temporary road closures

In order to carry out the majority of these repairs we must (by law) keep our workforce and members of the public safe, so we often must temporarily close a road.

Residents and businesses that could be directly affected by the road closure are usually notified in advance in writing, and advised what to do should they need to access their property or premises while the work is in progress.