Reform claims of “22 potholes per mile” of Derbyshire roads were based on misunderstood information

Reform UK claims that there were “22 potholes per mile” along Derbyshire roads were based on misunderstood information, it has been confirmed.

The claim was made during Reform’s first meeting at the helm of Derbyshire County Council and heard that there were 22 potholes per mile in the authority’s 3,361-mile road network. This would equate to 73,942 potholes across the county.

Rounded down to a road network of 3,000 miles, there would still be 66,000 potholes according to that claim, but council statistics published this month detail that in April – one month before Reform took office – there was a backlog of more than 16,000 potholes requiring repairs.

The county council says that it has now carried out 26,187 since April – including two months before Reform formally took control of the authority – and the backlog will be down to 3,000 potholes this month and on track to clear it entirely.

However, those figures contradict the claims made by Reform, with Cllr Charlotte Hill, Reform’s cabinet member for potholes, highways and transport, explaining the 58,000-pothole discrepancy.

She told the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) that her claim at May’s first Reform full council was based on Freedom of Information request figures which referenced reports of potholes, not individual potholes.

This misunderstanding of the figures was made clear when she took full control of her cabinet portfolio in the days after the claim was made at the administration’s first full council meeting.

Cllr Hill said: “A duplicate of reports fed into that original FOI number.

“The 26,000 number is the highways inspector-verified number. 

“The figure previously was the FOI figure which included duplicates, the figure now is the official highways approval.”

Due to expanded funding to the East Midlands Combined County Authority, Derbyshire is to go from having £40 million a year for capital roads repairs to £70 million.

Meanwhile, the council says it will be spending £3 million on a scheme in which each county division councillor nominates two roads for repairs.

The progress over the past few months of Reform control would put the council on track – at the sustained current rate – for 52,000 pothole repairs over the year.

In the last complete year, 2023-24, the authority repaired more than 80,000 potholes.

Cllr Hill said: “That was including revisits. They could have gone back to the same pothole three or four times. The highways director is now very confidently saying we are now revisiting potholes less.”

A previous FOI from the LDRS to the council under the previous Conservative administration found that the council does not record re-repairs of potholes, for which it had been scrutinised for, with short-term temporary repairs criticised by residents and the opposition.

Cllr Hill detailed that if her changes to the council’s potholes processes continued there would be a continuous decrease in pothole repairs, due to fewer re-repairs of temporary patch-ups and a focus on increasing long-term patching and resurfacing projects.

This shift in the scales would also see the council have a 75 per cent focus on A and B roads and 25 per cent on residential roads, which are currently not prioritised as highly.

She says this often leads to potholes on residential roads worsening significantly before they are eventually repaired.

Cllr Hill told the LDRS that the aim was to cut down on revisits to potholes and also carry out works to pavements and roadside verges and hedges at the same time as roads are closed for potholes and road resurfacing repairs, to make the best use of time and resources, lesssening disruption.

She said: “We are moving away from temporary repairs. Previously there was a lot of temporary, quick cold-bags being used and a lot of temporary materials being used. Now we are going more for full patching and long-term repairs and fixes. That is why we are confident there are less revisits.”

Current figures from the county council, published as part of new central Government transparency measures for pothole repairs, show 28 per cent of A roads, 38 per cent of B and C roads and 36 per cent of unadopted roads in Derbyshire are rated “red” for routes in “poor condition”.

Cllr Hill said the increased priority of residential roads would see these figures improve across the board through Reform’s administration.

She said: “Ultimately, the backlog of potholes was 17,000 at that time and at that point there was nothing the Conservatives could have done in one month to change that. We have still inherited a backlog of 17,000 approved potholes and they didn’t fix that in a month, we fixed that since May.”

The council details that it aims to carry out resurfacing projects on 10.9km of roads and give a preventative treatment to 87.1km of carriageways over the next year.

Cllr Alan Graves said in this month’s full council meeting that “approximately 17,000 potholes were left by the Conservative administration, knowing they would not be holding the reigns after May 1st”.

He said: “This backlog nearly cleared after six months of a reform council in control.

“We are committed to filling potholes and that is our policy and I believe that we have achieved that.

“There is a change in operation in that we are focussing on more-permanent repairs and patching rather than the filling of individual potholes.”

Cllr Alex Dale, Conservative group leader, said: “Well there’s lies, damn lies and statistics. It feels like it is just smoke and mirrors.

“We know that Cllr Hill said back in May that they’d inherited 66,000 potholes needing repair and we know that that was completely unfounded and has actually been debunked by this official council press release which suggests it was just 16,000 so there is an inconsistency there straight away. 

“It does suggest that Reform aren’t on top of the detail on this. Every year there is always a backlog after the winter and it does take over the summer for our highways teams to get caught up, so there is no difference. 

“There is no surprise in what is being said. A lot of the resurfacing schemes are what they inherited from us as the previous administration and approved in November. We had 30 gangs out before the last election and now there are 26. 

“100,000 potholes per year av, Reform are bragging about fixing 26,000 over a six month period, that is half the rate we were fixing them at all.

“If you ask any residents out there if they think the roads are better under Reform you would straight away get the answer of ‘no’.

“What we are still hearing from some residents is that the council is still doing temporary repairs as a bit of a bodge job which we know don’t last.

“Just get on with improving the job and stop patting yourselves on the back.”