Gloucestershire: Only six pothole claims paid out by council

Eight more roads are set to be resurfaced this year, bringing the total to 220, with 126 already completed

Only six claims out of 549 for pothole damage to cars were paid out by one local authority in 2023.

Gloucestershire County Council also had more than 1,200 Freedom of Information requests for details of potholes.

Most requests for data submitted to Gloucestershire County Council last year were about the state of the county's roads.

Councillors heard at a meeting that the "vast majority" of emails they get are about road conditions.

An extra £100m is set to be invested by the local authority to improve road conditions.

Councillor Lisa Spivey asked at an Overview and Scrutiny meeting what was being done to bring the number of requests for data down.

"All councillors here would agree the vast majority of our inboxes are filled with complaints about highways and the condition of our highways, and especially potholes," she said.

"Having looked into it myself, applying for compensation for damage to a vehicle which has occurred by hitting a pothole is incredibly difficult," Ms Spivey continued.

"It's almost like finding the needle in the proverbial haystack," she added.

Executive director of corporate resources, Rob Ayliffe, said he hoped the introduction of the new Fix My Street app which allows people to report problems on the road will enable transparency and reduce the number of requests submitted to the council.

"Having said that, our experience is that you just get a different type of request," Mr Ayliffe said.

"While my approach would be we should be publishing what information we've got, I'm realistic and I'm not sure that ever stems the number of FOIs you get in," he added.

Gloucestershire County Council said it plans to invest an extra £100m in highways improvements and trialled innovative methods to improve road conditions during the summer.

The £100m resurfacing programme was announced by the authority earlier this year after extra funding from the government meant it could expand annual resurfacing plans and fast track repairs.

The county council added the spray injection patching machine has speeded up pothole repairs, and Find and Fix teams have repaired over 20,000 smaller potholes ahead of schedule before they worsened.