Ben Bentley meets the men trying to sort out the county’s pothole problem.

Veteran hole-fixer Ray Jex, left, and Mark Cank mending potholes

In 50 years of fixing holes, Ray Jex, 71, has never seen craters like them.

“They are keeping us busy,” says highways maintenance man Ray, shovelling more hot macadam into a supersize pothole that has opened in the middle of the road beneath the railway bridge at Hanwood, near Shrewsbury.

“We are using two to three tonnes of macadam per day, per gang, and there are up to four gangs out here.”

“We’ve done hundreds of miles chasing potholes,” adds workmate Mark Cank. He takes out a map of the county decimated by thick strokes of a pink highlighter pen. These show the extent of pothole-ridden roads to be attended to.

Long ones, short ones, ones of every size and shape. It’s potholing season like none before, and motorists need not go too far out of their way to find the objects of their misery. In fact, they are hard to miss. Very hard.

The iciest winter in 30 years has left Britain’s roads with more than a million potholes, which will cost at least £100million to repair.

In a normal year the bill for patching up potholes in Shropshire and Telford & Wrekin is £870,000. Shropshire Council spends £700,000 patching potholes across its extensive road network while Telford & Wrekin forks out £170,000 on its smaller network.

The overall cost is expected to be be much higher this year. But right now Shropshire’s councils are launching “operation pot” – to temporarily fix the worst holes as as a matter of urgency.

Some thawed roads have craters up to a metre across and the AA estimates there is now one pothole for every 100 yards of road.

It’s no wonder that motorists are obsessed with them. Cop a pothole and the results are inevitable – countless cars suffering punctures, damaged exhausts and suspension. Advanced motoring skills and evasive action is required to avoid accidents. For bikers and cyclists simple journeys have become assault courses.

Much of the damage to the road is caused by water getting into cracks and expanding when it freezes, leaving gaping holes when it melts.

With maintenance crews out on the roads every day, either responding to calls from members of the public or actively seeking and fixing holes, the operation is a bit like firefighting.

Andy Keyland, engineer assistant for Shropshire Council’s central highways team, can’t begin to estimate the number of potholes on county roads, but he knows that this year the problem is the worst it’s ever been.

“Normally the budget is £65,000 just on filling potholes a year,” he says.

“This year, because of the weather it’s estimated to be £9,000 on top of that for this period – just for filling pothoes, not for patching them.”

With the bleak mid-winter still upon us, the more expensive “patching” – which involves cutting out a whole section of road surface around the pothole and replacing it – will have to wait until spring when the roads are dry. Newly applied surfaces don’t bond effectively on damp roads.

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