Please provide the following information relating to potholes and surveys within a 10 mile radius of Kentisbury North Devon (What three words: irrigate.including.measures). If the information for that area is not readily available then an area of up to a 30 miles radius of that location is acceptable (please confirm area or radius being covered by the responses provided).
The information should be provided to cover the period 1st April 2022 to 31st March 2024, preferably as total(s) per month, or if this is inordinately difficult then in three monthly or six-monthly periods.
Please note, data is not available in format based on a 10 mile radius of Kentisbury. The information we have prepared is for the County Electoral Divisions of Ilfracombe and Coombe Martin Rural, please see the following link Devon County Council – new boundary maps (from May 2017).
1) The number of potholes reported by the general public.
This information can be found at the following link Pothole repairs reports.
2) The number of potholes repaired by the council services.
Please see the link at question 1.
3) The number of surveys for potholes carried out by the council or its contractors. This must EXCLUDE surveys carried out primarily to verify potholes reported by the public. The figures may be presented in hours per month, or days per month or other suitable
statistic which demonstrates time and resources allocated to this task.
This information can be found at the following link Inspections Information.
4) The number of potholes reported by the council survey activities described in item 3 above.
Please see the link at question 1.
5) The date at which the Devon County Council criteria for reporting potholes changed from;
a) To report a pothole it must meet the criteria of as large as a dinnerplate and 40mm deep and have a vertical edge.
b) To the criteria of 300mm across and 40mm deep and have a vertical edge which is now described as ‘actionable’ in lieu of reportable.
The wording on our “Report a Problem” web pages were updated in January 2024 to better reflect our Highway Safety Policy. The Policy in respect of the safety defect criteria for potholes has not changed Highway Safety Policy vers 6.1 effective 1st January 2021.
6) The number of potholes which meet the criteria in item 5 above that were not repaired within 6 working days of being reported. Also provide a percentage if readily available.
Please see the link at question 1.
Regarding preventative measures.
7) Provide evidence of recent risk assessments undertaken by Devon County Council to minimise the risk of harm, including personal injury and damage to vehicles, through both their proactive actions and remedial works dealing with potholes.
8) Provide evidence that these risk assessments have properly considered the pothole characteristics (size, location etc) and also the increase in risk where clusters of potholes may occur.
For questions 7 and 8, examples of 3 recent risk assessments are detailed in the following link Risk Assessments.
Information that is greyed out is exempt from disclosure under Section 40(2) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (Personal Data).
The Council cannot disclose personal information if releasing it would contravene any of the provisions in the UK General Data Protection Regulation. In this instance release of this information would contravene the first data protection principle and therefore the information is withheld.
Our Highway Safety Policy sets out our risk based approach to Highway Safety Inspections and the identification of safety defects. This includes a risk matrix to apply scoring and therefore a response time when considering likely impacts associated with defects which is informed by a number of factors including category of highway, position of defect, speed of road etc. The policy also sets out the training and qualifications required of those responsible for inspecting the road and applying the risk based approach to demonstrate competence in doing so, as suggested in the national code of practice ‘Well Managed Highway Infrastructure.
9) Describe arrangements in place to review and monitor potholes which are not actionable to ensure that, as soon as reasonably practicable, after these potholes have grown to ‘actionable’ size, repairs are undertaken.
The programme of planned highway safety inspections and repairs in line with our Highway Safety Policy is the Council’s principal method to comply with the duty to maintain the highway in a safe condition. This is supplemented by the assessment of reports from the public regarding potholes. Reported potholes which deteriorate and subsequently meet the criteria for action would be identified in the next planned safety inspection, or be assessed again if reported by the public in the interim.