Highways maintenance transparency report - Potholes

Wirral defines a pothole as the breaking open of a carriageway surface, by more than 250mm x 300mm x 40 mm in depth, with sharp edges. This is the minimum size, but they can range up to 1000mm x 1000mm, anything more than this in size will be defined as a road defect.

Wirral undertakes regular inspections of its roads and footways, to ensure the highway is safe, with all sharp edge trips on footways of more than 20mm, assessed for repair. 

Wirral council achieves 100% of inspections on time, with 100% of all emergency works attended on time.

Over the past 10 years, Wirral has introduced various surface treatment processes, to look after the borough's roads. The types of road treatments used, have been chosen to get the maximum benefit and best value from the work being done so that more roads can be maintained. We also introduced new methods of pre-patching, which reduced costs making the preparation works better value.

This approach will also help to reduce the need for reactive repairs (like potholes) on our roads as more regular maintenance means that they are less likely to form.

Although pothole numbers can increase due to the weather, the strategy shows numbers remaining at manageable levels.

Estimate of the number of potholes filled