Glasgow City Council receives over 17,000 pothole complaints in less than a year

More than 17,000 complaints about potholes were made to Glasgow City Council between April 2023 and February this year, new figures have revealed.

The numbers come after a series of Freedom of Information Requests (FOI) made by the Conservative party and shared with the local democracy reporting service revealed that there were over 100,000 pothole reports across Scotland in the space of just 10 months.

Between April 2023 and February 2024, a total of 17,187 pothole-related reports were made to the city council, 20,045 between 2022 and 2023 and 14,095 between 2021 and 2022.

The local authority said that winter is a very damaging time for road surfaces and January 2023 saw an “exceptional rise” in reports following extended periods of frost and then rain.

A spokesman for Glasgow City Council said: “Potholes can appear suddenly at any time and are caused by environmental factors such as volume and weight of traffic, ice and rain.

“Winter is a very damaging time for road surfaces and January 2023 saw an exceptional rise in reports following extended periods of frost and then rain.

“We did not receive the same level of reporting during the most recent winter.

“To address the particularly severe conditions in early 2023, the carriageway maintenance budget was increased to £12m for 2023/24 to improve roads condition throughout the city.

“A total of 175 roads resurfacing projects across Glasgow were completed by March this year.”

The council’s repair programme means that potholes that do not pose a risk will be repaired permanently first time with no need for temporary pothole material.

Any potholes that are not categorised as defects will be monitored and placed on a programme of future patching works.

The spokesman continued: “Our responsibility is to ensure we have in place an appropriate system of road safety inspections and repairs that tackles the most dangerous faults as a matter of priority.

“We always seek to undertake first time permanent repairs wherever possible and at times multiple crews have worked round the clock, day and night, to repair road surfaces.

“The roads network is inspected on an on-going basis but we always urge people to report any road faults to us directly so they can be properly assessed and included in an appropriate repair programme.

“Issues with the roads network can be reported via our website, the MyGlasgow phone app or through the MyGlasgow social media channels.”