A Whitland councillor has said that council offficers are evaluating whether to invest in a pothole-fixing machine to help alleviate issues on roads and streets across the county.

The ‘Pothole Pro’ cuts out sections of road around potholes for neater repairs, with manufacturer JCB claiming it works up to four times quicker than traditional methods.

County Councillor for Whitland and Henllanfallteg Cllr Sue Allen, said that members of Carmarthenshire County Council were this month given a demonstration of the ‘Pothole Pro’ in action.

As part of the council’s Place Sustainability and Climate change scrutiny committee, councillors attended the demonstration of the pothole JCB device.

“Council officers are doing their sums now to see if it will be worth the investment to maintain the roads. We will probably have a report in the near future,” she shared on social media.

“For any experts out there I hope you will please correct me if my description is not spot on.

“A bit of background on potholes is that water/ice makes them worse so sometimes as a shorter term measure tar and chippings are placed as a surface dressing to seal/protect the road until such time as it can be planed/scraped away and a new layer of tarmac laid. Drivers have to go slowly until it settles.

“Individual potholes can be filled as an emergency measure with a bit of tarmac/chipping stuff and squashed down but this may not last so long.

“The ideal way is to dig out an area larger than the pothole and ensure the edges are vertical i.e. at 90 degrees to the pothole.

“The area needs to be clean and have nice crisp edges. Hot tarmac (60 degrees) is then laid and squashed down with a heavy roller. It is hard work drilling away at the road and using pneumatic devices to get a straight edge.

“Vibrations from this work can affect operators and some can suffer from white finger.

“The new machine manufactured in Wales is called a Pothole Pro and is a JCB with a big arm on it,” continued Cllr Allen.

The functions on the arm are as follows:

• A sort of rotating drum that grinds away the road surface

• A big hoover and sweeper that sucks up all the bits and sprays with water to keep down any dust (bits are deposited into a lorry and recycled)

• A blade type device that chops the edges tidily to make a good join (this sharp 90 degree edge contributes to the longevity of the repaired pothole)

A programme of works to repair thousands of potholes on some of Wales’ major roads was given the green light back before the summer.

Since 2021 the Welsh Government has spent more than £81m on resurfacing around 321km of roads on the trunk network across Wales.

Combined with the forecasted spend for 2025-26 this means that by the end of this Senedd term £118m will have been spent to repair more than 500km of roads that connect our communities.