Huge increase in reported potholes

The number of reported potholes in Lincolnshire has risen by more than two and a half times it has been revealed.

Lincolnshire County Council revealed it had received 23,438 complaints about potholes in the 12 months before June 1, 2018.

Over the same period the previous year the number of complaints was just 9,034, 30 more than in the 12 months previous to that.

It’s also a huge increase from the 7,118 complaints received between June 1, 2014 and June 1, 2015.

Coun Richard Davies, executive member for highways, said: “This winter was one of the worst that we’ve ever had to deal with, and we saw far more potholes on the roads as a result of the severe weather. So it’s unsurprising we’ve seen an increase in potholes reports from the public.

“However, we’ve now managed to deal with around 96 per cent of the potholes caused by the winter weather, and we’ve seen a significant drop in the number of pothole reports in the last month or so.

“Of course, there’s still a lot of work to do, and new potholes are always cropping up, but we are finally beginning to catch up with the backlog.

“We realise this is has been a frustrating situation for everyone, but given the limited funding available there are no easy answers at times like this.

“Although an additional £12m has been injected into the highways budget this year, it is nowhere near the hundreds of millions of pounds we’d need to bring our roads up to the standard we’d like.

“We will continue to push the Government for fairer funding for Lincolnshire.

“If councils here received the average funding for council areas in England, the region would benefit from £116m of extra funding for services every year – some of which could be used towards highways repairs.

“That would make a massive difference.”