Watch:Black Country council's new £150k pothole repair machine in action
Sandwell Council have rolled out their new £150,000 pothole filling machine to help tackle problems with ruts on the borough's roads.
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Dozens of Sandwell Council workmen armed with shovels and brushes were on hand to welcome the latest recruit in the fight to keep the region's carriageways in good repair.
The Multevo Multihog road planer is used to scrape the holes in preparation for the infilling material which is then flattened by the crew, meaning the pothole disappears within seconds.
During a roadworks scheme the crews were able to quickly complete a repairs in 120-feet stretch in pothole riddled Deville Road in Wednesbury at the junction with Manor House Road.
The machine was purchased by the council in June 2024 for the price of £150,000 as part of their efforts to fix road damage across the borough.
We watched the machine which is equipped with a mechanical planing gear in action as it repaired the road surface in a timescale that would previously take up to an hour by manual labour alone.
The new machine forms a part of Sandwell Council's commitments to road repair and resurfacing, with the council investing £55 million into the highways in the coming financial year.
The council highways site supervisor Lee Preece, from Oldbury, said that the machine turns what would be a two-day job into only one.
"It's a really good bit of machinery. What you can see it doing now is planning off the surface of the road, which has smaller potholes in it, which will then be filled in by the team.
"The problem with manual digging is that our site workers can only dig for around 18 minutes before being required to have a break or switch out. This allows us to dig the road consistently without stopping, saving what is around a day of work, and the worker's hands," Mr Preece says.
Councillor Keith Allcock, Sandwell Council's cabinet member for environment and highways, added that the machine has endless uses.
Councillor Allcock says: "It's a bit like the Thunderbirds of machines. It can have hedge cutters, scrape and brush the roads, and be used as a gritter in colder weather. It's a true multi-purpose machine.
"This machine will mean that disruptions to traffic will be lower, and it's better for the operators and site workers, It's genuinely a win-win machine.
"It's a machine that lessens the strain on workers and does the job faster, which means less disruption to residents and ultimately, fewer costs."
The machine will be utilised in pothole hotspots around the borough, with plans for the machine to be used for various jobs, including gritting when needed.
