DORSET County Council has been awarded nearly £1.5m to fix potholes caused by the snow and icy conditions this winter.

In March, the Department for Transport announced that highway authorities would be given additional funding to deal with roads damaged during bad weather spells.

Dorset County Council will use its share of the pothole fund to tackle winter damage to the county's roads. This is on top of £750,000 awarded to the council in December 2017.

The Dorset Highways team's programme of patching work will start in the west of the county on Monday, and in the east of the county on Tuesday, May 8, using the additional money from the Department for Transport to repair damaged sections of road across the county council area.

Further patching sites will continue to be added. A list of resurfacing sites, which will also make use of this funding, is currently being finalised.

In east Dorset, patching work is scheduled to take place in Wimborne from May 8-10 on roads including Julians Road, Crescent Road, Rowlands Hill, Chapel Lane, Stone Lane, and St John's Hill.

From May 9-11, it will take place in Waterloo Road and Windgreen Roundabout in Corfe Mullen.

From May 10-17, roads in St Leonards, Colehill, Woodlands, Ferndown, and Christchurch will also be repaired.

For the full list, visit dorsetforyou.gov.uk.

In the past 12 months over 16,000 highway safety defects have been repaired, and nearly 2,000 ‘emergency’ repairs were made safe within the first 32 hours after being reported.

Overall, 18,047 highway safety defect repairs were completed on time.