Drivers pay the price as rain damage causes more potholes

In Sheffield, the council has been forced to call out emergency repair workers after deteriorating road conditions punctured two tyres on a police car as it ran over a large pothole in Prince of Wales Road.

The hole was invisible to drivers as it was filled it with water. Several other cars were damaged hitting the crater.

However, even before the unseasonably wet weather hit, earlier this year the Yorkshire Post revealed that more than £700m was needed to repair Yorkshire’s crumbling road network.

In Wakefield, the council has predicted further damage to those roads in the district that have been hit with high volumes of running water in recent weeks and confirmed more potholes had appeared.

In North Yorkshire, the prolonged rainfall has also delayed important roadworks on the A64 at Norton. The Brambling Fields junction – a main route to the Yorkshire coast – will miss its completion deadline of the end of June.

“The prolonged rainfall made ground conditions very difficult on the site,” said county councillor Gareth Dadd, executive member for Highways.

“April’s rain was unusual in its intensity and duration, and unfortunately the consequence has been that the contractors will suffer a small delay while the ground becomes less saturated.”

It is thought the scheme will still be completed in time for the start of the school summer holidays, when traffic flows on the A64 traditionally see a marked increase.

Sheffield council said yesterday it now has 10 teams of staff carrying out emergency repairs on roads. They are aiming to fix any damage within 24 hours.

The city will shortly see changes coming from the country’s largest council private finance initiative project, intended to bring every main road and street up to a high standard by the end of the decade.

But David Weeks, director of the Asphalt Industry Alliance, a group representing road builders and asphalt producers, said the full effect of the downpours would not be seen for two or three months.

“Because roads aren’t properly maintained, there are cracks in the road and the water pours into these,” he said. “If water gets into the structure of the road, they deteriorate.

“The full effects of this heavy rainfall will be seen over the next two-three months. Roads that local authorities thought would wait a few months (to repair), they will now find on the critical list.”

There will be no respite for the region’s road network as the wet weather looks set to continue into Wednesday night. Forecasters said Yorkshire could be in line for a downpour as heavy showers make their way north.

Dozens of flood warnings remained in place yesterday after heavy rain across parts of England.

In Gloucestershire, a road collapsed and saveral minor routes around Tewkesbury remained under water

People have been cautioned to keep away from swollen rivers amid fears the high water levels across the UK could claim yet more lives.

The advice follows the deaths of a man and his dog when their car became submerged in fast-flowing water at a flooded ford in Hampshire on Monday – the final day of the wettest April on record.

Despite the month’s record, the Environment Agency said it would take much more time and rain to undo the effects of two dry winters and bring acres of England out of drought.

Thames Water warned its 8.8 million customers that a hose-pipe ban will remain in place despite heavy downpours bringing more than double the long-term average rain for the month.

The UK’s biggest water company said the rain had not made up for the shortfall caused by below-average rainfall in 20 of the previous 25 months.

Sustainability director Richard Aylard said the firm was aware of the “irony” that heavy rain had set in after the ban was announced earlier last month.