The Milton Keynes Liberal Democrats are calling for the 'pothole intervention level', the required depth of a pothole before action is taken, to be lowered or scrapped by Milton Keynes Council.
At present, a pothole in Milton Keynes needs to be at least 50mm deep before action is taken, with any 'shallower' potholes being rejected for work to take place.
Lib Dem Group Leader, Cllr Douglas McCall, said, “While the other two parties try and outdo each other with promises of the thousands of potholes they are going to repair, the Council says that at the end of March there were only 270 potholes on the system awaiting repair. That is because the Council is going out and measuring potholes and if they are not at least 50mm deep, not only are they not repairing them they are not even recording them as a pothole”.
He continued, “We believe that the intervention policy is wrong and needs to be scrapped or at the very least lowered to 30mm. Currently, there are thousands of potholes that the Council doesn’t even accept are potholes, so how are they ever going to get fixed?"
Potholes have become a key pillar of the upcoming local election campaign, with the local Conservatives recently calling for the Council to re-instate the 28-day period for repairing potholes.
Meanwhile, the local Labour party have recently agreed increased funding for pothole repairs in Milton Keynes by £200,000.
