Frequently Asked Questions
What is a pothole?
A pothole is a large, deep hole in the road, often formed when roads freeze and thaw repeatedly or during heavy rainfall or flooding. Changes in temperature causes damage to the surface and layers of the road become unstuck or the surface breaks. Traffic travelling over these weakened road surfaces then cause holes to appear.
How do you report a pothole?
You can report a pothole on our website. It’s quick and easy.
What happens after a pothole is reported?
When a pothole is reported, we aim to inspect it within five working days. However, this can take longer depending on staffing, time of the year and resources.
An inspector will assess the pothole and depending on its level of risk, will then arrange for a repair. Most pothole repairs will be made with a temporary or semi-permanent material to make them safe until a permanent repair can be made.
- Category 1 – critical risk, repaired within 24 hours.
- Category 2 – high risk, repaired within five working days.
- Category 3 – medium risk. It can take up to 60 working days during busy periods, but the average time is much shorter.
- Category 4 – low risk, no specific timescale for repair. If you think the condition of the pothole is deteriorating over time, please let us know by reporting it again.
- Category 5 – no risk, no action needed.
If you’ve reported the problem online and requested an update, we’ll email you to let you know the next steps.
Why has a pothole I’ve reported not been repaired?
We assess potholes using a risk-based approach. Our priority is to make roads as safe as possible.
- Category 1 – critical risk, repaired within 24 hours.
- Category 2 – high risk, repaired within five working days.
- Category 3 – medium risk. On average it takes around X working days for these repairs but it can take up to 60 working days during busy periods.
- Category 4 – low risk, no specific timescale for repair. If you think the condition of the pothole is deteriorating over time, please let us know by reporting it again.
- Category 5 – no risk, no action needed.
Why was the pothole not fixed within the timescale?
Occasionally, meeting target response times may not be possible, particularly at certain times of year, due to pressure on resources. This could be due to the high number of repairs that are needed after periods of bad weather, such as prolonged spells of heavy rain or snow, or freeze / thaw conditions.
How do you repair potholes?
The type of repair depends on a number of factors including:
- size of the defect
- the location
- the road conditions
- road materials
- speed limit of the road
- defect category
- weather conditions
- traffic management requirements
- available budget and resources
- works already planned for that road
For smaller potholes we use a material which can be poured into the hole and self-levels before forming a very hard surface and making the road safe.
In areas with multiple potholes in close proximity, we tend to use a hot material and overlay a larger area.
Temporary repairs are made to make roads safe until we can do a permanent repair.
If a road has lots of potholes it may require more work like patching or resurfacing.
There have been potholes on the road for a while, when will they be repaired?
We might not know about it, so if you are concerned about a pothole, please report it on our website.
A team came out and fixed a pothole, but they did not do the other one up the road. Why?
There can be a few reasons for this:
- We may not be aware of the other potholes because they’ve not been reported to us.
- They may have been inspected and placed in a different repair category with a different timescale for repair.
- Larger potholes require different equipment - sometimes our teams fixing smaller holes don't have the right tools to fix larger ones and so we need to ask another team to fix it. It may also be that only one pothole was reported.