Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether her Department has made an estimate of pothole a) reports and b) repairs per capita in i) urban and ii) rural local authorities in the last 12 months.

The Department for Transport does not hold data on the number of pothole reports made to local authorities. Under section 41 of the Highways Act 1980, local highway authorities are responsible for the condition of their local road networks, including responding to reports of defects such as potholes.

Data on the number of potholes repaired by each local highway authority during the last five years is published in authorities’ highways maintenance transparency reports, which set out how they are maintaining their network. The Department does not use this data to produce an assessment of pothole repairs per capita, or per mile of road split by rural and urban authorities.