POTHOLED roads across the region are set to be improved as North Yorkshire County Council plans its spring season of repairs to tackle the ravages of winter.

Weeks of plummeting temperatures, rain sleet and snow and the need to grit the roads night after night has had a noticeably damaging effect on North Yorkshire’s roads.

The county council has already used nearly 50,000 tonnes of salt and completed over 7,000 gritting runs this winter, which exceeds the amount done in the whole of last winter.

The number of reported potholes, emergency pothole repairs and road conditions causing concern over December and January is more than double than in the same period in the previous year, partly due to the online reporting of potholes being made easier.

The county council’s highways contractors continue to carry out emergency pothole repairs for safety reasons during these winter months and also drainage works to reduce standing water on the carriageway; but the bulk of the improvement works must wait until spring arrives.

Councillor Don Mackenzie, executive member for highways, said: “The deterioration is there for us all to see

“Come the spring we will re-start our annual programme of maintenance and repair work when we can make inroads into the damage.

“The 2018 schedule of works includes again hundreds of roads which will be patched and dressed and others which will be planed off and completely resurfaced.

“Repairs will be carried out on the basis of prioritisation.”

North Yorkshire is England’s largest authority and has a 6,000 mile road network – a distance which would more than stretch from England to Pakistan.

The county council will have spent £48m on road maintenance by the end of this financial year 2017/18 and in recent years it has also targeted preventative capital repairs.