A CLEVER gadget is helping Bury Council win the war on potholes.

The highways department spent £100,000 on the specialist machines so engineers can fill potholes quickly and easily as they no longer have to tear up a large section of road.

New figures suggest the machines are helping town-hall bosses to fill in more potholes and reduce the number of complaints.

Cllr Alan Quinn, the council’s environment representative, said: “We are constantly striving to increase efficiency and, as a part of this process, we are trialling the use of a spray injection patching machine to improve how we repair potholes throughout the borough.

“To date, this machine has quadrupled the amount of pothole repairs carried out by a three-person team. Approximately 1,500 potholes have already been repaired effectively using this method.”

In the 12 months up to the end of March 2015, the council received 2,198 reports of potholes, compared with 2,430 in the previous 12 months.

Nuttall Lane in Ramsbottom was the most complained-about road in 2014/15, compared with Bury New Road in Prestwich and Whitefield in 2013/14.

In 2014/15, 115 people made legal claims to the council for compensation after alleging their vehicles had been damaged by potholes. Seventy-six were successful and they received a total of £25,414.

In 2013/14, 173 motorists made claims and 120 were successful and were awarded a total of £35,280.

The figures were published by the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) whose regional chairman for Greater Manchester, Simon Edmondson, said: “Our members rely heavily on the local road networks to do business. Poorly maintained roads impede that.

“While this research shows councils are, on the whole, making some headway in maintaining our region’s road network to an acceptable standard, there’s still room for improvement.

“There were somewhere in the region of 20,000 complaints from the public about damaged roads across the Greater Manchester area in 2014/15 – that figure tells its own story about our roads.”

The figures show Bury Council spent £1.7 million on road repairs in 2014/15, compared with £2.6 million spent by Wigan Council.