Report potholes or a highway problem

Local highway related issues or defects should be reported via Street Doctor, including potholes.

National Highways maintains motorways, dual carriageways and certain trunk roads noted below and issues should be reported to them.

The following issues are reported to other teams or partners:

Potholes

Safety defects

To be considered a safety defect, a pothole needs to be at least 40mm deep and on our busiest roads. On local roads, it is a depth of 50mm.

This helps us prioritise limited maintenance funding as we cannot fix all defects reported to us.

We observe issue hotspots on our roads and treat some defects before they actually become safety defects. In addition, we carry out a permanent repair where possible. Sometimes, we make a temporary repair if substantial works are already planned or the location means a permanent repair can't be done quickly (e.g. traffic management or closures needed, but the defect cannot be left).

Potholes response times

Response times vary and can be dependent upon the type of road, the location and depth.

We categorise how urgent it is to repair the pothole depending on the risk it poses to the public. Sometimes, this means a pothole will be dealt with when routine maintenance is again carried out on that stretch of road. Our response times for our busiest roads are:

  • Emergency: Response within two hours
  • Priority 1: Response within 24 hours
  • Priority 2: Response within 7 days
  • Priority 3: Response within 28 days
  • Priority 4: Response within 26 weeks

For more local roads our response time for the worst safety defects is up to 28 calendar days (with some prioritised within 7 days) and other safety defects up to 26 weeks, depending on the type of road.

In practice, most priority 2 repairs are completed in around 2 to 3 days.

National Highways

National Highways maintains certain trunk roads in the area and issues should be reported directly to them. The roads are highlighted in green on our mapping:

  • M1
  • M45
  • A5
  • A14
  • A43 between the M40 Junction 10 and M1 Junction 15a (from Northampton to the county boundary near Stamford is the Council)
  • A45 between Thrapston and the M1 Junction 15 (from Junction 16 to the county boundary towards Dunchurch is the Council)

Last updated 19 August 2023