Potholes and road defects

We operate a system of inspections so we can categorise road defects depending on their severity.

Reinstatement of the road surface following a duct or pipe being laid by a utility company remains that company’s responsibility. If you are aware of a failure in a utility reinstatement, please contact us.

It is likely that defects will occur between our inspections and members of the public play an important role in reporting new defects to us.

Find out how to report a pothole or a road defect to us.

We carry out repairs on a priority basis based on the following criteria:

• class of road
• volume of traffic
• size and location of defect

When potholes are reported to us, a roads inspector goes out to carry out a visual inspection and logs the defect. This is logged on our asset management system which uses a risk based approach and awards points to the defect based on the attributes logged by the inspector such as road class, volume of traffic, speed limit, location of pothole (with regard to the vehicle path) and size of the pothole.

This means that a pothole on an A road with high volumes of traffic may be classed as a 4 hour or a 7-day response, whereas the same size of pothole on an unclassified road may be classed as 'monitor' that is with no repairs planned unless the pothole gets worse.

How potholes are created

Watch the video explaining how potholes occur.