Thanks a lot Henry & Co: Winter storms cause pothole PANDEMONIUM

According to Glasgow City Council, more than 500 people have got in touch to raise concerns about potholes in January, with 153 people reporting issues in the last week.

Dowanside Road in Glasgow's West End

Garage staff say they have been swamped with drivers whose cars have been damaged after encountering holes following last week's storms.

The local authority and motoring experts have called for further investment to help permanently fix city roads.

On Byres Road at the junction with Highburgh road, wires running underneath the tarmac has been left exposed after a crater opened up last week.

High Street at West George Lane

At Bothwell Street and Hope Street, a 6ft section of the junction is covered in uneven cracks and dips in the road, which are thought to have had temporary repairs before the storms hit.

In nearby West George lane, a 4inch hole is also causing problems for pedestrians in the city centre.

As reported by the Evening Times, storm Gertrude caused chaos across Glasgow when 90mph winds and rain hit the city on January 29.

Two schools were closed and a children's play park was damaged after a tree fell down onto it in Queen's Park.

Hope Street at Bothwell Street

Bridges and roads were also closed and there was widespread disruption to train travel across the country.

There was no let up when storm Henry moved in on Monday, causing more chaos when it blew part of a college roof off in the Gorbals, closing nearby roads overnight.

Kevin Vallely, workshop manager at McLetchie Auto Services in the South Side said he has been visited by a number of drivers in the past week looking for help, after their cars were damaged by holes in the road.

He said: "I had a BMW in today and a pothole had broken the rear shocker clean off the car.

"I had a Peugeot earlier on as well, the girl had gone down into a pothole and it had ripped the rear tyre of the car, I've still got it lying here in the garage.

"A Toyota was in last week; the chap had bent the rear suspension arm because he had gone down into such a deep pothole.

"That's just in the Southside here, it's a serious problem.

"They are everywhere."

Marie Aitkenhead, owner of Byres Road garage in the west end, said she has seen an increase in pothole damage to cars recently, with her staff fixing problems on a daily basis.

She said: "There have been more people coming to us in the last week, after the storms.

"We do hundreds of pothole damaged cars, whether its a broken wheel, damaged tyre or broken coil suspension, strings and strut mountings, which we do daily.

"People have had damaged wheels, bulged tyres, or broken coil suspension springs which is a common problem.

"Shock absorbers can also start leaking or strut-top mountings are going as well because of the impact of the pothole.

"Cars are built to take a simple hit but not the pot-hole damages we're getting in Glasgow and the surrounding areas because of how deep they are getting.

"About 25% of our business just now which is pothole damage."

Glasgow City Council said despite the large number of calls relating to the defects, it is the lowest number they have had in the last four years.

During the same month in 2013, the local authority received more than 1000 reports about the road defects, while last year they had 649 in January.

Bailie Elaine McDougall, the council’s executive member for Transport, Environment and Sustainability, said: “The council has invested £75m over the last six years resurfacing more than 600 roads and permanently repairing an estimated 70,000 potholes and defects.

"By focusing our resources on planned road patching programmes - which are more effective in the long term than reactive repairs – we are seeing a positive trend in the reduction of weekly potholes reported to us by the public.

“However, while our investment strategy has been successful in significantly reducing the number of potholes over the last few years, a lot more investment is needed to improve the overall condition of the city’s roads.

“Glasgow’s roads do remain in better condition than the Scottish average.

“In any year we expect to experience a seasonal rise in the number of potholes on our roads over the winter.”

Neil Greig, the Director of Policy and Research at the Institute of Advanced Motoring has called for more investment for local authorities to allow them to permanently fix potholes, instead of carrying out temporary patch repairs.

Mr Greig said he feared any work carried out by the council will now be "back to square one" following the most recent storms.

He said: "Once again we're looking to the Scottish Government to help local authorities to deal with an unusually bad year.

"We were starting to see councils spending more on permanent pothole repairs. They were digging up the road and doing it properly instead of temporary patches but unfortunately, things are so bad this winter, a lot of this work will have to be temporary patches and they wont last.

"We need committed, long-term funding to deal with these pot holes properly and not just patch them."

A Scottish Government spokeswoman said: “In 2015/16, more than £220 million has been allocated for the maintenance of motorways and trunk roads, that’s 20 per cent more than five years ago.

“We do all we can to make sure that the network is as well maintained as possible and trunk roads are inspected at regular intervals to identify defects like potholes, which are then repaired by our operating companies within the timescales set-out in their contracts.

“The maintenance of local roads, including pothole repairs, is a matter for Scottish local authorities and they allocate resources on the basis of local needs and priorities.

"In 2015-16 the Scottish Government is providing local authorities with total funding of over £10.85 billion.”