Road repair experts head for west of city

AN EXPERT road repair team is visiting the west of the city over the next month.

Swansea Council’s PATCH project (Priority Action for Community Highways) spends an intensive week in each part of the city between mid-April and the end of December every year to fill in potholes and attend to other road defects.

The team is in Upper Loughor this week. They’ll also be visiting Kingsbridge, Gowerton, Penclawdd, Pontarddulais and Killay by the end of October.

The PATCH project is in addition to other Swansea Council road maintenance teams who are out and about every day to help keep the city moving. Their combined work means close to 4,500 potholes and other road defects have been attended to so far in 2015.

Over 20 communities have already been visited so far this year, including St Thomas, Townhill, Morriston, Cockett, Clydach, Bonymaen, Landore, Mynyddbach and Gower.

This work helped contribute to a Welsh Government and Local Government Data Unit report earlier this month that found Swansea’s roads were the second best maintained of all 22 council areas in the country.

Cllr David Hopkins, Swansea Council’s Cabinet Member for Environment and Transportation, said: “Potholes and other road defects are features of all road networks across the UK because of the impact of the weather and the heavy volumes of traffic nowadays. Despite some people’s perceptions, Swansea’s roads are in no worse condition than any other part of the country. In fact, a recent independent report found our roads are the second best maintained in Wales. We know how important the condition of our roads is for residents and visitors, which is why we’re continuing to heavily invest in their maintenance and condition despite the unprecedented financial challenges we’re facing as a council.

“The public can rest assured that we have specialist staff out and about every day to inspect the city’s roads, log damage and schedule repairs according to priority. It’s inevitable, though, that our staff can’t be everywhere at once, so I’d also urge the public to get in touch with us if they see road damage that needs fixing.”

Communities being visited by the PATCH team in November include Dunvant, Bishopston, Oystermouth and West Cross. By Christmas, the team will have visited all Swansea’s communities in little over eight months.

Visit www.swansea.gov.uk/highwayproblems to report road damage or call 0800 132081.