Potholes reported in the last financial year 2022-23
Case reference FOI2024/00564
Published 19 April 2024
Request
In accordance with the Freedom of Information Act, I would be grateful if you could comply with the following request.
Could you provide the following information:
1. The number of potholes reported in the last financial year (2022-23)?
2. The average time taken between the reporting of a pothole and its resolution in the last financial year (2022-23)?
3. The longest delay between the reporting of a pothole and its resolution in the last financial year (2022-23)?
Response
In accordance with the Freedom of Information Act, I would be grateful if you could comply with the following request.
Could you provide the following information:
1. The number of potholes reported in the last financial year (2022-23)?
A) The service area have advised we do not hold a single data set on the number of potholes reported. This is because carriageway defects, which include but are not limited to potholes, can be reported through various channels by members of the public or identified by our highway's inspectors during routine and ad-hoc safety inspections.
However, the total number of carriageway patching jobs raised in response to reported or identified carriageway defects in the 2022-23 financial year was 27,406.
This figure does not include duplicate reports or cases where the defect is assessed as not meeting the intervention level of risk for prioritised repair.
2. The average time taken between the reporting of a pothole and its resolution in the last financial year (2022-23)?
A) Herefordshire Council uses a risk-based approach to highway maintenance activities, ensuring the most safety-critical defects are responded to in the quickest timeframes.
Reported or identified defects are evaluated by highways inspectors in line with latest industry practices (Well-managed Highway Infrastructure: https://www.herefordshire.gov.uk/roads-1/highway-asset-management-maintenance/3 and allocated to one of the following categories:
Category 1A: Defects that require attention by the end of the next day because they present a significant immediate or imminent risk to highway users.
Category 1B: Those that should be attended to within seven days because there is a risk of short-term structural deterioration that will result in a significant risk being presented to highway users.
Category 2A: Defects which, following a risk assessment, are deemed not to represent an immediate or imminent hazard or risk of short term structural deterioration that are high priority and should be repaired within 28 days.
Category 2B: Defects which, following a risk assessment, are deemed not to represent an immediate or imminent hazard or risk of short term structural deterioration that are medium priority and should be repaired within two months.
Category 2C: Defects which, following a risk assessment, are deemed not to represent an immediate or imminent hazard or risk of short term structural deterioration that are low priority with no defined timescale for repair.
Please see the attached FOI2024 00564 Response Spreadsheet for the average time from assessment and categorisation to repair based on priority and defined timescales.
3. The longest delay between the reporting of a pothole and its resolution in the last financial year (2022-23)?
A) 99% of all carriageway defect repairs raised in the 2022-23 year were completed within the defined timescales.
The longest delay for a completion of a carriageway defect repair in 2022-23 was 105 days. This was related to a Category 2B defect.
Please see the attached FOI2024 00564 Response Spreadsheet for the longest delay by priority categorisation.
Documents
This is Herefordshire Council's response to a freedom of information (FOI) or environmental information regulations (EIR) request.
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