Edinburgh roads: Pothole repairs are taking longer, but council says it is meeting its targets

Edinburgh's potholes are not only increasing in number, they are taking longer to fix, according to the city council's own statistics.

A total of 16,058 potholes were reported to the council n 2022.  That leapt to 23,793 in 2023 and in the first three months of 2024 there have been 9,702, which - if reports continue at the same rate - could mean more than 38,000 by the end of the year. The figures were released under Freedom of Information legislation.

A ward-by-ward breakdown of how quickly repairs are carried out shows that in every part of the city the average number of days before a pothole was sorted increased between 2022 and 2023 and jumped again between 2023 and 2024.The longest wait for a pothole repair was 96 days for one in Forth ward to be mended in 2023.

However, the council said it aimed to inspect any reported potholes within five days and then categorised and prioritised them to ensure that the worst potholes were dealt with first.  And it pointed to recent figures showing it was meeting the targets for the different categories.

Transport convener Scott Arthur said he shared the public’s concerns about the condition of the city’s roads and pavements. But he said when he took over the role in 2022, he found road and footway maintenance had been allocated £8 million less funding per year than was needed.   

"In the 2023 budget Labour won the argument, and we allocated an additional £11 million to road and footway maintenance – this led to over 500,000 square meters of roads and footpaths being resurfaced in a single year. 

"In the 2024 budget meeting Labour blocked attempts from the SNP and Greens to cut the budget, and we allocated £1.5 million on top of the 2023 funding. We’re now on track to improve more square metres of roads and pavements than in any other financial year in 2023/24.

"Although the funding is at record levels, we are still paying the price for historic underfunding. Although many roads and footways in our capital are in a shameful state, data suggests we are starting to halt the decline."

He said that despite being Scotland’s worst-funded local authority, data published in December showed the council meeting its target repair deadlines. "One hundred per cent of the worst potholes are fixed within 24 hours, while 98.3 per cent of Category 2 defects are fixed within five days and 99.35 per cent of Category 3 defects are repaired within 60 days.

"I wish more defects could be fixed sooner, but the Council continues to face cuts at the hands of the SNP/Green Government. Scotland needs change."