Nine-month wait for a pothole repair in Shropshire, Lib Dems claim

The mammoth wait from a pothole being reported to it being repaired took 285 days, according to data obtained by the Lib Dems.

The more than nine-month wait placed Shropshire ninth in the longest time to fix a pothole out of the 81 councils that responded to the party's Freedom of Information requests.

The data reported that 6,173 potholes were reported in Shropshire in the financial year 2021/22, with an average fix time of 17 days.

Councillor Richard Marshall, Shropshire Council's portfolio Holder for highways and regulatory services, said the council "has a lot to be proud of", having undertaken over 55,000 pothole repairs in the last two years.

He added: “The FOI asked for the number of potholes that had been reported to the council by members of the public. However, we also undertake regular proactive inspections of our highway network to identify potholes in need of repair, and this represents by far the largest number of potholes that we are aware of and repair, around 80 per cent of the total.

“We always endeavour to repair potholes as soon as possible, with priority given to those that pose a safety risk. From April 2021 to March 2023, we repaired over 55,500 potholes, an average of 550 per week and quite an achievement.

"We repair potholes that have been reported well within our policy response time of 28 days from the date we became aware of the defect, either through public reports or our own inspections.

"The current response time averages 17 days, and this has been achieved by changes to ways of working in the last three years.

"The recent £60m investment by the council into road maintenance has resulted in an investment in large programmes of surface dressing and resurfacing across the county to better seal the road surface and reduce the impact of weather on the road network – helping to prevent potholes occurring in the first place.

“And last year we introduced Fix My Street to encourage and make it easier for people to report potholes so that we become aware of them more quickly, and can carry out essential repairs in a more timely manner.”

Despite this, North Shropshire MP Helen Morgan slammed the state of the county's roads in the Commons last month.

Speaking on the final day of the Budget debate, she said the “entire national potholes budget would probably not be enough to repair the badly neglected roads of Shropshire” as she described the Budget as “taking with one hand and giving away with another”.

The latest data comes after Prime Minister Rishi Sunak sought to focus on fixing Britain's ailing roads in the run-up to May's local elections.

Opponents have accused him of deploying a "complete re-hash" of a year-old pothole crackdown, with Downing Street confirming there is no new money on top of the £200 million in the Budget.

Some 556,658 of the road defects were reported in the financial year 2021/22, up from 519,968 in 2017/18, according to data obtained from 81 councils responding to the Lib Dems' FOI.

Roads in Derbyshire County Council were the hardest hit, with 90,596 potholes, followed closely by Lancashire County Council with 67,439 and Northumberland County Council with 51,703, the party said.

The Lib Dems accused the Government of creating a "pothole postcode lottery" by cutting local authorities' highways maintenance budgets by £500 million since 2020-21 and announcing only a £200 million top-up to the national potholes fund in the Budget.

Mrs Morgan, who is also the Liberal Democrats' local government spokesperson, said: "Potholes have become a plague on our roads. Motorists should not have to spend their journeys choosing between hitting potholes or dangerously swerving around an obstacle course of tarmac craters.

"Hardworking people are paying huge bills to repair damage from potholes, while this Conservative Government takes away the money local councils need to repair our roads.

"It is not fair for residents in some areas of the country to be waiting over a year for road repairs because their council cannot afford it.

"The pothole, postcode lottery needs to end. That's why the Liberal Democrats are demanding that the Government reverses its cuts to councils' road maintenance budgets in full, so they can get on with fixing our roads."

On a visit to Darlington last month, Rishi Sunak highlighted new regulations that will see utility companies penalised for leaving streets in poor condition.

Mr Sunak said: "There'll be more fines, more inspections, that's also going to help. We want to make sure it's easy for people to get around."

Labour said the announcement echoed a 2021 Government pledge to make potholes a thing of the past and accused ministers of "broken promises".

The Lib Dems described it as a "complete re-hash" and said the "blunt truth" was that roads will continue to fall into disrepair until councils received the funding to fix them.

A Department for Transport spokesperson said: "We're investing more than £5.5 billion to maintain roads up and down the country, and cracking down on utility companies that leave potholes in their wake, so motorists and cyclists can enjoy smoother, safer journeys."