CALLS are being made for a pot-holed road to be completely rebuilt.

As the ice thawed and the snow melted, it revealed hundreds of potholes across the region's roads.

However a resident in Berkeley claims that the road that links the town to the A38 has been in a horrendous state for years and that weather has nothing to do with it.

"I have been involved in construction all my life, the council says it is weather damage but it is sheer negligence, the whole structure of the road is broken up," said Peter Woodhams, referring to the B4066, which is littered with deep potholes.

Earlier this week his Fiat Punto was hit by a piece of tarmac that flew up from a pothole in the road and smashed the glass on the front headlight.

He wants to council to re-surface the whole road because the holes are causing expensive damage to his and other drivers’ cars. Mr Woodhams said: "If your car drives into a pothole it has a massive impact on the shock absorbers, if you are driving down that road all the time I would estimate it could take 1,000 miles off the shock absorbers. It is causing expensive damage to people’s cars."

However it could be a long while before the road gets repaired as Gloucestershire County Council announced last week that due to the snow they could be spending the next six months repairing potholes around the county.

These repairs, they say, will cost in the region of £5 million as the problem is so severe.

Cllr Stan Waddington, Gloucestershire cabinet member for environment, said: "Potholes are appearing all over the place and our experience from last year taught us that repairing all the defects caused is an expensive business.

"We don’t know yet how much it will cost us, but something in the region of up to £5million is a good starting point.

"As soon as we can, a complete inspection of the road network will be carried out and our teams will begin the mammoth task of fixing our roads.

"This will take time and inevitably it will cause disruption on the roads but I hope people will understand this work is essential and I ask them to be patient while we do our job."

Gloucestershire Highways manager John Kay said he was not aware of any specific problems in Berkeley on the B4066, but told the Gazette he would arrange for this location to be inspected as soon as possible and for any "safety critical defects" to be repaired.

No one from South Gloucestershire Council was available to comment on the number of potholes on their roads and the likely cost of repairs.