"Serious pothole reports soar in Coventry"

It has been blamed on the weather



More than 1,500 of the most serious potholes required urgent repairs in Coventry last year – a huge 65 per cent rise year-on-year.

Coventry City Council has blamed the increase on a “very wet winter” after the wettest nine months on record was recorded between June 2019 and February this year.

A total of 1,528 ‘priority one’ potholes were reported to the authority across 2019/20 compared to 925 in the previous year.

Priority one potholes are considered to require priority attention and, if required, may need be made safe at the time of the inspection to prevent injury.

The city council said it aims to repair problems within five working days.

“This increase is attributed to the effect of the very wet winter,” an annual One Coventry report to councillors said on Wednesday.

A council spokesman added:” We aim to deal with priority one defects within five working days and so any defect identified as a priority one by the highways inspectors team in 2019 will have been repaired.”

Last year, Coventry council was branded the slowest council in Britain when it comes to fixing serious potholes.

Research from the RAC Foundation found the authority carries out repairs within five working days whereas the average for most councils was two hours.

A spokesman added: “Our patching teams carried on working throughout the lockdown to repair roads and pavements."

You could have fooled me! I don't recall spotting a single council repair crew during that entire period?

If they repaired them properly rather than just put inadequate sticking plasters on them it might be a start. Bring back the Clerk of Works and demand a 12-month guarantee from the contractors.

During that period I reported a large deep pot hole right by the crossing I explained if a motor bike hit it it would cause them to come off their bike as it was quite deep and that was repaired with in a few days .
When I was young in the early to mid 60s roads were fully re tarmac every ten years even the road I grew up in Telfer Rd.