A council has shared its frustration about the large number of road defects it is dealing with as it revealed it had received more than 30,000 pothole reports. West Sussex County Council had 69,669 reports regarding highways in the last financial year with 30,444 of these related to potholes. Some 17,000 pothole reports were received in the first four months of the year alone.
A council spokesman said: “We understand how frustrated people feel about the exceptional number of defects currently present on some roads in West Sussex and the impact this has on travelling around the county. “We feel that frustration too and are working hard to make improvements using the resources available to us.” In 2023/24, the highways department completed more than 45,000 safety defect repairs, of which 29,661 were potholes, an increase of over 5,000 from the previous financial year.
It carried out 23,000 defect repairs in more rural areas while also delivering “proactive” patching of 24,300sqm of road. The council said recent periods of “extreme fluctuations” in weather, with record levels of rainfall in the winter, accelerated the decline in the condition of West Sussex roads. It said it is focusing on repairing safety defects and has teams working twilight shifts and Saturdays to manage the increased number of safety jobs.
The council manages 4,000km of roads. In 2023/23, its planned delivery team carried out complete resurfacing, surface dressing, micro-asphalt treatments and.