POTHOLES and surface damage on roads caused Monmouthshire County Council (MCC) to pay out almost £2,000 last year.

MCC paid out a total of £1,931 of compensation last financial year, due to either property damage or injury caused by surface defects on the county’s carriageways.

MCC paid on on six separate cases, the most expensive being for £664 for property damage.

A spokesperson from MCC?said:?“Monmouthshire County Council follows good practice in its maintenance and inspection of the public highway, undertaking a robust inspection regime and carrying out prompt reactive repairs where required. This means it has been successful in removing hazards on the highway network and can produce robust defence against many claims.

“Reducing budgets and resources means it will always be a challenge to the highways team to eliminate the number of paid claims, but with innovative ways of working and the use of new materials the council hopes to ensure that the county’s highways are maintained in a safe condition.”

Local residents have expressed concern about the road surfaces, with suggestions that contractors were using diesel in road repairs that seemed not to be lasting very long.

However the spokesman from MCC denied the claim. He said: “Diesel dissolves bitumen, the binder in tarmac, so consequently we don’t use it to repair potholes. It is used in small amounts to clean shovels and tools.

“The person who raised this may have seen our contractors pouring Tac Coat, a bitumen based fluid that acts as a sealant and binding agent between the old tarmac and the new repair.”