Stoke-on-Trent first to get JCB pothole machine

Left to right: James Harper, Stoke-on-Trent City Council’s Team Manager of Highways, JCB Chairman Lord Bamford and Councillor Daniel Jellyman, Stoke-on-Trent City Council’s Cabinet Member for Infrastructure, Regeneration and Heritage with the JCB PotholePro.

Stoke-on-Trent City Council has become the first local authority in the UK to take delivery of JCB’s new PotholePro machine.

Described by the manufacturer as “revolutionary”, the PotholePro can repair potholes in just eight minutes - four times faster than repairs carried out using traditional methods - and “at half the cost”.

The machine is equipped with a 600mm wide planer and an integrated dust suppression system that allows the operator to plane a full carriageway from the kerb without repositioning.

It enables users to cut the road defect and crop and clean the edges of potholes, and also comes with a sweeper/bucket and hydraulic cropping tool. According to JCB, this allows “a uniform hole to be prepared by the operator from the comfort of their cab”.

Councillor Daniel Jellyman, Cabinet Member for Infrastructure, Regeneration and Heritage, said, “We’re absolutely delighted to have our own JCB PotholePro.

“We’ve been fortunate to help JCB with the development of the machine over the past year, so we’ve been able to test it out extensively on our roads already and be at the forefront of developing new technologies and ways of working to tackle a problem motorists face up and down the country.”

Stoke-on-Trent City Council and JCB agreed the deal for the PotholePro machine earlier this year.

It has since then seen the local authority fix 7,000m² of road patches during its testing of the machine.

Jellyman said, “We’ve done that in just 80 days. Using traditional methods this would have taken 758 days, so the work rate and success of this machine speaks for itself.”

The PotholePro - which also enables road workers to avoid the dust, vibrations and noise that comes with using traditional hand held tools such as jack hammers and floor saws - was handed over to Stoke-on-Trent City Council by JCB Chairman Lord Bamford”. 

Bamford said, “It was great to meet with the council and hear what a positive impact the PotholePro had made on the roads of Stoke-on-Trent.

“Our vision for this machine was to fix Britain’s roads quickly and permanently and this is just what the JCB machine is doing right on our doorstep. I’m delighted with the results.”