20.potholes reported to Leeds City Council EVERY DAY
The authority wants more help from the government to deal with them
Last updated 1st Aug 2019
The council wants more money from the government to help fix the vast number of potholes causing chaos on Leeds' roads.
New figures show they get more than 20 complaints about them every single day.
37.000 have been made to the authority about the state of roads in the district between 2014 and 2019.
The council says it has a “robust” system for managing highways in the city, but admitted it is dealing with a backlog of maintenance and needed “greater financial support” from government.
Responding to the figures, a spokesperson for Leeds City Council said:
“We have a robust system for managing our highways in Leeds and proactively plan maintenance to reduce the amount of reactive repairs needed. We carry out routine safety inspections to identify potholes for repair, as well as reviewing local reports.
“The council has increased spending in the last 10 years on planned maintenance to reduce the number of potholes forming on the roads.
“However, we do still need greater financial support from government. It is estimated that the cost of restoring the roads in England and Wales to a reasonable, steady, state would be approximately £9.79bn.
“Currently, we are dealing with a backlog of outstanding maintenance on our road network. More support needs to be given to local authorities to help us improve the condition of our roads to tackle problems which affect all road users every day."
Leeds-based transport campaigner Stuart Long agreed that the council needed more resources to deal with the problem, but called on the authority to make it easier to complain about road problems.
He said: “They don’t have the budget – they need the government to help out.
“But when you make a complaint, everything has to go through an online system."