Nottinghamshire County Council says it does not have data on how often it is returning to potholes after repairing them as one councillor claims the authority is not being "honest" about the issue. A highways review commissioned in the summer of 2021 resulted in the council moving towards a "right-first-time" approach when it came to repairing potholes.
The authority said last December that temporary repairs using ViaFix had decreased by 61% and that the number of complaints had also dropped. But a full council meeting on January 19 saw opposition councillors reading out over 1,000 broken roads and pavements across Nottinghamshire.
One councillor asked the council how many times it was having to re-visit potholes more than once following a repair, but was told the authority did not hold that information. The council has since confirmed this, saying such information would be "difficult to identify."
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Councillor Steve Carr, a Liberal Democrat councillor for the Bramcote and Beeston North area, said: "One minute, the Conservatives at County Hall tell us that the use of ViaFix has gone down 61% in a year. Then in the next breath, they say they don't hold the information on how many potholes have been re-visited more than once.
"I put it to the Conservatives at County Hall that this is a barefaced lie and the reality is that they're wasting hundreds of thousands a year on botched jobs. They are not being transparent and the reality is that they are misleading residents by not being honest with the problem."
But Gary Wood, the Head of Highways and Transport at Nottinghamshire County Council, insisted that the authority did not have the data on pothole re-visits. He said: "We hold a record of every pothole or defect that is identified on the highway in Nottinghamshire, whether found by our inspectors or reported to us by a member of the public.
"We do not have specific information on return visits to specific potholes as it is very difficult to identify, although return visits to a specific pothole do occasionally happen. However, in most cases visits to repair potholes at locations where work has already been completed are to address further highway defects. This is because additional potholes are more likely to appear close to where repairs have been made due to deterioration of the road surface."
Councillor Carr said one road in his area, Carwood Road in Beeston, had been repaired at least five times. People across Nottinghamshire have recently been sharing complaints about potholes in their area, with one councillor in Stapleford claiming that repairs are being "bodged."
Gary Wood added: "The county council reviewed it's approach to pothole repairs through the cross-party highways review and this has led to a 61% decrease in the amount of ViaFix used in highway repairs over the last year as a result of increasing the amount of large-scale permanent repairs. This can be evidenced by the amount of ViaFix ordered for use by our repair teams.
"The amount of large scale permanent repairs has quadrupled as part of the highways review and the council's extra investment of £3m per year over a four-year period. Emergency repairs using cold materials are still needed and it is important to remember that the primary focus of these repairs is to keep the highway safe for road users and pedestrians, until larger scale repairs are made."
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