What happens after you report a pothole

We check our pavements and roads often. Our Highway Inspectors will look for safety defects that may cause damage or injury, whether this be routinely or reported by you.

Inspecting reported potholes

Once we have your pothole report, one of our Highway Stewards will visit the location. They will assess the problem to see if it meets our criteria to fix the pothole, or to keep an eye on it for a potential future fix.

At the location, our Highway Stewards will:

• inspect the problem
• evaluate the risks to the road user
• plan what is needed to fix the problem.

After the investigation, if repair work is deemed necessary they will raise a work order. This schedules the work to take place in one of the following timescales:

• 2 hours
• 24 hours
• 7 days
• 28 days
• 90 days.

Find out how we repair potholes.

Routine inspections

Each year, we also complete over 600,000 inspections by foot or vehicle. Some areas are checked monthly due busy pedestrian or traffic use, such as town centres. Quieter areas are inspected yearly.

In winter, we often need to make quick fixes to potholes to make them safe. We can't always make permanent repairs in bad weather. So, we log the problem and schedule time to return and fix it later.

Our Highway Stewards

As well as inspecting potholes, Highway Stewards also play an important role in managing the safety of our:

• roads and pavements
• streetlights
• street furniture
• traffic lights
• drains and gullies
• trees and vegetation
• signs and road markings
• bridges and other structures.