Torbay residents are being encouraged to report pothole or footway defects to help the council identify priority repairs. The Department for Transport has allocated a £117,000 pothole fund to Torbay Council for the 2017/18 financial year. This will be used to either repair potholes or to treat roads to prevent potholes from forming.

It follows £71,000 of Government funding in 2016/17 which was invested in various preventative and repair measures across Torbay such as minor road resurfacing and larger scale patching works to strategic routes. This supported routine and major maintenance programmes.

The Executive Lead for Planning, Transport and Housing, Councillor Mark King, said: “I would strongly encourage local residents to report any pot holes through our online reporting system. Although we carry out regular inspections of our highway network, this information will assist us to identify any defects that may need urgent attention.

“We welcome this Government funding, but it’s important to stress that it won’t enable us to carry out all of the preventative and repair work that needs doing. We have a backlog of roads than need work and we would need around £20m to bring them all up to a good standard.”

Works are prioritised in accordance with the authority’s Asset Management Plan to ensure the limited funding that the council receives is used in the most economically effective way. As part of this, not all reported potholes will be repaired; only defects that reach the intervention level are fixed and any defects below these levels are recorded and monitored.

Potholes and footway defects can be reported on the Highways Faults page.