Portsmouth City Council has spent more than £160,000 on patch repairs at the Hard Interchange

Freedom of information requests to Portsmouth City Council have shown repair works at the Hard Interchange, in Portsea, have cost the authority a total of £163,773.54.

Since April 2018 the surface of the bus terminal has required no fewer than 10 repair jobs - with the most expensive of these carried out in October this year at a price of £33,580.54.

Previously concerns have been raised that the surface of the harbourside site, which opened in 2017, is sinking, although the council has confirmed this did not apply to the structure of the hub as well.

And as reported, it is the council's intention to completely replace its surface - although this has been held up by the coronavirus pandemic.

Councillor Lynne Stagg, the city council's traffic and transport boss, said: 'We carried out an investigation into the problem with the surface of the Hard interchange.

'This identified that the surface layer would need replacing. Our long-term goal is to alleviate the problem by replacing the surface layer.

'Unfortunately, the pandemic has delayed this activity. We recognise that it is important to keep this valuable service operational with millions of people using it each year.

'To do this we must make temporary repairs to the surface and the ongoing cost of this is included within the discussions.'

Cllr Stagg added that the council has 'entered into discussions' with the designer, RoC Consulting, and contractor, Osborne, who were responsible for the original scheme about the surface replacement.

The freedom of information request also revealed throughout 2018 a total of two repairs were carried out - costing £28,772.59.

In 2019 five jobs were carried out on the surface of the interchange - at a cost of £54,613.73.

And in 2020 so far three jobs cost £74,231.57.

At the moment these costs are paid for from the council's corporate reserves.

All the work has been completed by Ensign Highways Ltd, except for one job to create new road markings in March 2019, which were done by Maebill Contractors Ltd.

A breakdown of repairs

April 2018 - cold asphalt patch repairs on the bus apron: £5,536.66

July 2018 - cold asphalt patch repairs on the bus apron: £23,235.93

March 2019 - repairs: £2,689.13

March 2019 - road markings and linings: £6,155.65

May 2019 - repairs: £22,326.93

June 2019 - repairs: £1,620.67

December 2019 - repairs: £27,977.00

February 2020 - repairs: £12,267.89

April 2020 - repairs: £28,383.14

October 2020 - repairs: £33,580.54

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