Leader says Nottingham County Council is ‘leading the way’ in road repairs

Since early 2026, the Reform-led authority has been steamrolling its various highway programmes to get a grip of the county’s crumbled streets, following a September 2025 survey which found 38 per cent of roads were in ‘poor condition’.

It announced in February it would be putting a £2m pot of ‘emergency’ money towards road fixes across 35 sites deemed most in need.

By April, the authority had announced a total of £181.25m was going to be spent on two phases of road works in 2026-27, where £11.2m of this was earmarked for ‘worst first’ roads based on councillor recommendations.

The following month, the authority’s two new leased JCB Pothole Pro machines began works on roads, with the machines subject to a 12-month trial by the authority.

Just months into its highways programme, council leader, Mick Barton (Ref), says the JCB machines are the ‘best piece of kit’ and his authority is ‘leading the way’ for England’s county councils, with 1.5m square metres of road due to be surface dressed in 2026-27.

According to the council, its figures for May to August 2026 are the best for road repairs compared to any other authority.

Nearly 637,800 square metres of road will be resurfaced, which is the equivalent to more than 56 miles of road and is more than double the 249,090 square metres completed in 2025-26.

Speaking to the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS), Coun Barton said: “There’s nobody in the country doing what we’re doing.

"We’ve resurfaced, the surface dressing programme, 1.5m square metres of road which is unprecedented, it’s record breaking.

“We’re going to carry on right through winter, I’ve got a big winter plan we’re putting together, we’ve got 10 of these teams now, we’re looking at having up to 20 teams in winter – so we’re going to stay on top of it.”

The leader said he was ‘confident’ about his authority’s winter roads maintenance plan, which will include a 72-hour repair programme and more effort will be put into permanent repairs.”

He continued: “This is a three-year programme, in three years’ time, we’re hopefully going to get to a space where it’s just maintenance.

“We’ve got ahead, we need to stay ahead now.

"We need to put just as much in next year’s budget than we’ve put in this year, that’s the aim.”

The authority is aiming to get between £100m and £120m put into next year’s budget for roads.

Coun John Semens (Ref), deputy cabinet member for transport and environment, told the LDRS the authority’s highways efforts are a ‘phenomenal amount of investment’.

He said: “Investment in new machines like the Pothole Pros and the mastic boilers and the figures are starting to stack up, it’s proving itself.

“It was an investment that was desperately needed.

“We’ve completed more in six months than was completed in the entirety of last year.

"We are looking to get two years’ of work done in one year – it is a phenomenal programme.”

According to the authority, around 100,000 potholes have already been repaired so far along with the completion of 152 out of 450 surfacing schemes – around a third of the surfacing programme.