A COUNCILLOR who has been campaigning for improvements to Gloucestershire’s roads for years, saw his car tyre burst by potholes in Chedworth which he had apparently reported to the authorities ‘weeks ago’.

Liberal Democrat county councillor Paul Hodgkinson tweeted the above image of his burst tyre on Thursday, adding he would be “seeking compensation”.

He wrote: “See damage to my car near Chedworth @GlosRoads from potholes which I reported weeks ago. Like many others, I’ll be seeking compensation.”

Earlier this month, Tory-led GCC announced an extra £9million would be added to the budget for roads for the next year.

The budget incorporates last-minute amendments thanks to one-off funding from the council’s reserves, including £3million extra for roads than was initially proposed.

The amendments came following suggestions from the Lib Dems at this month’s full council meeting.

The total budget for 2017/18 is £407.682million.

Cllr Mark Hawthorne, leader of GCC, said: “We’ve had to make some tough decisions this year. I’m satisfied that this budget does what local people told us they wanted – striking the balance between protecting the most vulnerable, as well as extra money for our roads.”

At the council meeting, Cllr Hodgkinson had also called for the county’s highways services to be brought back in-house rather than extend the existing contract with Amey.

Since April 2014, Amey has taken responsibility for managing and maintaining Gloucestershire’s highway network, which includes nearly 10,000km of roads, as well as providing winter maintenance services and delivering highway improvement schemes.

Councillors are due to decide in the early summer whether to extend the contract for a further three years or to terminate it in 2018/19.

“There is an unfounded acceptance that private companies such as Amey are cheaper and more efficient than the public sector,” said Cllr Hodgkinson.

“Many councils up and down the country are however taking public services back in-house.

“There are substantial cost savings being achieved as a result of ‘insourcing' and those councils that have brought services back in-house are delivering higher quality services.

“Let’s take back control of our roads,” he added.