Pothole reports soar by more than 550% in nine years

Twm Owen, Local Democracy Reporter

The number of potholes reported to a council increased by more than 550 per cent in nine years as repairs reduced and spending increased.

In the first three months of this financial year there have already been 838 requests to fix potholes and while the council repaired 471 that left just under half waiting for a repair over the same period.

Figures show requests for pothole repairs went from 669 to 4,360 in the nine years to 2026 which is a more than six-fold increase or 552 per cent.

During the same period, from the 2017/18 financial year to the end of March 2026 repairs reduced from 2,999 carried out in 2017/18 to 2,740 in the past financial year.

Completed repairs fell to 810, in 2021/22, when Covid era lockdowns were still in partly in place, and 1,010 in 2022 though spending on pothole repairs grew from £608,000 in 2017/18 to a high of £1.174 million in 2024/25 after the Welsh Government made additional funding for road resurfacing available.

Spending is described as “best guestimates” for all temporary carriageway repairs as specific financial data isn’t kept on reported pothole repairs.

The figures released by Monmouthshire County Council cover every year from 2017/18 to the 2025/26 financial year while it has provided figures for the first quarter of the current financial year covering April to June.

Details on the average number of days it takes the authority to repair a pothole, after receiving a report, have also been supplied and showed that has increased from 10.5 days, when the figure was first recorded in 2019/20, to 18.7 days last year.

The average number of days between a report and repair in the current year is 20.4 but the council has cautioned lengthening repair times over time may reflect it is using more, and different, repair options that are planned rather than reactive.

The full figures cover how many pothole service requests the council received, how many were repaired with the figures for 2017/18 and 2018/19 higher than requests indicating proactive repairs were being carried out before complaints were made, how much was spent filling potholes and the average time between report and repair.

The council said its budget for pothole repairs is based on need and assumed to be equal to the previous financial year while it wasn’t able to say how many hours had been spent fixing the roads.

In 2025 Monmouthshire council said its backlog in highway repairs stood at £80m while it set up a £5.5m fund towards maintaining roads, footpaths, bridges and public rights of way this year with a further £1.69m available for essential road resurfacing and structural repairs.

The information on pothole requests and repairs is held on the council’s freedom of information disclosure log where it collects responses it has provided to requests received under the freedom of information act.

Full figures

How many pothole service requests received?

2017/18: 669

2018/19: 706

2019/20: 1,962

2020/21: 1,381

2021/22: 1,101

2022/23: 1,357

2023/24: 3,204

2024/25: 2,984

2025/26: 4,360

2026/27 Q1: 838

Number of pothole repairs completed

2017/18: 2,999

2018/19: 3,405

2019/20: 1,699

2020/21: 1,179

2021/22: 810

2022/23: 1,010

2023/24: 2,741

2024/25: 1,906

2025/26: 2,740

2026/27 Q1: 471

Council spending on pothole repairs

2017/18: £608k

2018/19: £730k

2019/20: £632k

2020/21: £600k

2021/22: £785k

2022/23: £740k

2023/24: £999k

2024/25: £1,174m

2025/26: £864k

2026/27 Q1: Not yet available

Average time between pothole report and repair (days)

2017/18: Not recorded

2018/19: Not recorded

2019/20: 10.5

2020/21: 15.6

2021/22: 9.9

2022/23: 14.3

2023/24: 15.67

2024/25: 18

2025/26: 18.7

2026/27 Q1: 20.4

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