By Councillor John Stephens
We want to talk honestly about potholes. We’re seeing more and more comments, particularly on social media, about the condition of our roads – some people even saying we don’t repair them at all. And we get why it can feel that way. Plymouth is a big place. With nearly 1,000km of roads, it’s perfectly possible to go about your day and never see a crew working, even though we’re out there, every single day.
So let’s start with some truth.
Yes – we absolutely do repair the roads.
Last year alone we repaired over 8,000 potholes and once our “find and fix” work is fully counted, the real number is probably closer to 9,000. And that’s on top of resurfacing, patching, surface dressing and dozens of other improvements across the city.
But before we go any further, let’s get something straight about the scale of what we’re looking after here. Our highway network is enormous and it’s ageing. We’re responsible for:
- 882km of roads
- 1,198km of footways
- 80km of cycleways
- Over 40,000 gullies
- 45 bridges, 28 footbridges, 48 subways and 4 tunnels
- 31,676 streetlights, thousands of signs, 120 traffic‑signal junctions and 196 cameras
It’s the city’s most valuable physical asset – by a long way (it’s worth about £2.5B). And like anything that’s old, exposed to the elements, and used constantly by thousands of people every day, there will always be works to do. We don’t have a bottomless pot of money. No council does. So we have to make choices. We have to prioritise.
We don’t pick streets at random and we don’t work on a “shout the loudest” basis. Every Plymouth street is inspected regularly – some monthly, some every three, six or twelve months – depending on their classification and how they’re used. This is set out in our Highway Inspection Manual and helps us make sure we’re checking the right roads at the right intervals.
We also inspect every reported pothole within three working days, wherever it is in the city. Our inspectors check the size, depth and risk to road users to decide how urgently it needs repairing. For bigger jobs, we use independent condition surveys carried out every two years, which help us plan long-term resurfacing and protect the city from bigger, more expensive problems later on.
We now need to discuss the weather. Weather is an important factor in highway maintenance. Let’s be honest – the last 12 months has been brutal on our roads. Not only does bad weather stop play, sometimes, the weather simply undoes work we’ve just done. That’s not an excuse. It’s not bad workmanship. It’s simply how roads behave when you mix age, water, freezing temperatures and heavy use. This winter alone we’ve had heavy rain, storms, freeze-thaw cycles and saturated, shifting ground.
Water gets into tiny cracks. Frost expands them. Rain weakens the layers underneath. And before you know it, a defect forms.
Sometimes we fix a pothole on a Wednesday and the following week a new one appears a few metres away. Sometimes the stretch we repaired last month gets hit by another freeze–thaw cycle and breaks again.
And yes – that’s demoralising. For you, as road users. And for us and for our crews.
They’re out in all weathers trying to stay ahead. They take pride in doing a good job. It’s tough to see fresh defects appear after a full day of repairing others. But the weather doesn’t care about effort.
But we managing the condition of our roads – in small, steady, daily ways that add up over time.
Just in the last year, we have:
- Surface dressed 31 roads (nearly 96,000m²)
- Carried out patching on 43 roads (7,890m²)
- Completed 2,815 traditional pothole repairs
- Repaired 4,044 defects using spray-patch technology
- Delivered “find and fix” work on 42 streets, covering 7,800m²
- Resurfaced 9 roads (around 14,000m²)
- Improved grip on 3 roads (10,700m²)
Potholes aren’t a sign that we’re not investing, infact over the next four years, we are looking to invest around £55m on our highway network. They’re a sign that the network is old, the climate is changing and that we’re repairing as fast as conditions allow.
We’re working hard. Our crews are working hard. And we’ll keep at it – because Plymouth’s roads matter to all of us.
