DIY pothole patches costly to fix, warns Palmerston North mayor

A phantom pothole patcher has left the Palmerston North City Council peeved and ratepayers apparently out of pocket.

Earlier this week someone concreted in potholes around the city. But the mayor, Grant Smith says the road was already scheduled for a fix and now patching the patch-up is going to cost even more.

“I can totally understand the frustration,” he told Checkpoint. “But please don’t be the vigilante pothole filler-inner.

“We need that to be done professionally.”

Smith is asking people to report potholes to the council and said there will be action.

He said with Covid keeping roadworks from being completed, supply chain issues and labour shortages, it has been difficult to keep on top of road problems.

“In recent times we’ve seen more wear and tear with more trucks, and ultimately they rip our roading network apart. When we get a pothole, trucks cause so much damage. So they’ve got to be fixed properly.

The mystery patcher is using normal cement concrete, he said.

“It sounds good in theory, but they’re different compounds. They have to be dug out.”

Smith said people can use the Snap Send Solve app to report an issue on the road. That gets logged immediately with the infrastructure unit.

“And depending on if it’s an arterial route, if it’s close to one of our hubs or right in the middle of the city centre, that can be fixed that day or the next day.”

Roading infrastructure is costing more too, Smith said. “To fix roads where sometimes the cause of the pothole is road subsidence underneath, you actually need to dig down and go back to the base. That is literally costing hundreds of thousands of dollars more.”

And if the mayoral office itself needs to be contacted about a pothole, Smith said he’ll pass the details on to the right people.

‘Mayors School’

It has been a busy time for Grant Smith, with recent local body elections and inductions at councils around the country.

When asked for advice for new Auckland mayor Wayne Brown, Smith said he will be seeing Brown at “Mayor School” in Wellington next week.

“He’s certainly started with a bit of gusto. But to win friends and influence people you’ve probably got to talk to them first.”