Enquiries received relating to potholes - Find a freedom of information request

1. Between 1st January 2023 and 31st December 2023, how many enquiries received were related to potholes?

2. Between 1st January 2023 and 31st December 2023, of the enquiries received relating to potholes, how many required a written response back to the customer?

3. Between 1st January 2023 and 31st December 2023, of the enquiries received relating to potholes, how many required inspections by your highways managing agent contractor, or your direct workforce if you do not sub-contract out highways maintenance?

4.Between 1st January 2023 and 31st December 2023, of the enquiries received relating to potholes, how many were considered not to be potholes? i.e. the defect reported did not meet the council's pothole specification relating to depth and width.

5.Between 1st January 2023 and 31st December 2023, how many customer enquiries did you receive in total?

6. What communications channels can your customers use to contact you about potholes?

7. Do you have a dedicated customer service team and if so, how many employees does this include?

8. When receiving notification of a pothole and/or safety critical defect, how quick do you inspect and repair this?

I can confirm that the information requested is held by Lincolnshire County Council. I have detailed below the information that is being released to you.

1. 17156

2. 15757. All enquiries which are logged via our online fault reporting systems receive a written response, either bespoke or from a set of stock responses aligned to our internal statuses to keep customers informed of actions and progress.

3. 15334. Almost all enquiries relating to potholes will receive an ad-hoc inspection, unless it is easy to determine from the information provided that they are unlikely to receive action before the next routine inspection occurs.

4. 3091

5. 49689

6. Customers can contact us about potholes through the following channels:

• Fix My Street, which can be accessed directly from our website at this link https://www.lincolnshire.gov.uk/faults-maintenance/report-pothole or via the app or https://www.fixmystreet.com

• By phone at our Customer Service Centre on 01522 782070

• By email to our Customer Service Centre at CSCHighways@lincolnshire.gov.uk. Although we encourage reporting through Fix My Street.

7. We have a customer service centre with a highways team of 11 who receive calls and emails and send them through to our highways officers to action.

8. Our response times to potential safety defects are set out in our Highways Infrastructure Asset Management Plan, available publicly at the following link: https://www.lincolnshire.gov.uk/directory-record/61685/highways-infrastructure-assetmanagement-plan

We have a variety of repair response times depending on the risk presented by the defect considering the likelihood and impact presented.

Our inspection timescales vary in line with the repair times:

24 hour repair response – 2 hours to inspect and/or issue works

7 Day repair response – 1 day to inspect and/or issue works

28 day repair response – 3 days to inspect and/or issue works 

90 day repair response – 10 days to inspect and/or issue works