06 February 2024 , 14:47
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Roads across the country are blighted by dangerous and unsightly potholes and it can seem like they are never repaired.
According to councils across England every year, more than a million potholes in our roads were repaired. Figures revealed thanks to Freedom of Information requests made by the Reach Data Unit to every local authority in the country, show the number has remained pretty consistent over the last three years.
There were at least 1.23million repaired in the 2022/23 financial year, up slightly from the 1.21 million the previous year, and 1.19 million in 2020/21. The figures also revealed how the number of potholes varies drastically across the country, resulting in a postcode lottery of potholes.
You can find the figure for your local authority in our interactive map.
The way that each council records potholes varies, however, meaning that it’s not possible to simply compare them with one another. For example, some councils log each individual pothole in their data, whereas others will group various potholes together into a single unit of work.
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Potholes are annoying motorists around the country (KMG / SWNS)Four councils saw the number of potholes they repaired double in 2022/23 compared to a year earlier. Bedford repaired 1,955 potholes in 21/22 but 4,654 last year. That’s an increase of 138%, the largest of any local authority in England. In Portsmouth, the number of repairs rose from 152 to 350 over the same time period, an increase of 130%. In Nottinghamshire they went from 4,483 to 9,866, and in West Berkshire they rose from 924 to 2,011.
At the other end of the scale, the number of potholes repaired by Ealing council fell by 56% from 6,654 in 2021/22 to 2,888 in 2022/23. That’s the largest percentage drop in the country. In Newham the number of repairs fell by 53% from 416 to 197, while in Wirral they fell by 51% from 1,222 to 599.