1. Please provide statistics and information on reported potholes, road edge deterioration, maintenance and road repair budget in place to deal with the shocking state of Devon roads and lanes from October 2022 to January 2023.
Between 1 October 2022 and 11 January 2023, 8,904 potholes have been identified through routine safety inspects and reports from members of the public. This number includes defects and road edge deterioration.
The Devon County Council (DCC) Highways Maintenance capital budget for the financial year 2022/23 is £55,280K and revenue budget for the financial year 2022/23 is £24,723K.
Actionable potholes fall within DCC’s Safety Defect budget. This financial year, the safety defect budget allocation was £5.4m. Details of what else is covered in this budget can be found in our Highway Safety Policy which is published on our website. Please note £5.4m is not exclusively spent on potholes.
2. Please provide details of emergency plans from October 2022 to January 2023 .
Our plans for dealing with the condition of Devon’s roads are detailed in the Highway Safety Policy and Highway Asset Management Policy and plan
3. Please provide accident statistics for the last 3 months, likely to be caused by potholes and very poor road surface maintenance. As well as the massive costs incurred through car damage, holes are causing swerving, accidents, tyre blow outs and crashes.
We do not hold collision data for the requested time period as this information is not currently available.
We have been collecting 2022 injury collision data from the Police however it is not yet complete and there is currently up to a 5 month lag due to Police back office backlogs they are facing at the moment.
It is likely to be May/June 2023 before we can release 2022 data. 2023 data will not be available until May 2024.