Pothole Damages and Repairs - Freedom of information requests

Title or Description: Pothole Damages and Repairs
FOI Number: 2024192
Date Received: 08/02/2024
Type of Request: FOI
Request or Question: Since 1st January 2001 to 1 January 2024 how many claims have been made to SBC for vehicle damage cause by potholes in Border Roads and how many have been successful.
Second part why are SBC frontline staff not being taught the proper method, the method I was taught when I worked for a road contractor, the proper method being Clean out all debris from Pothole, top up with Road Metal to appropriate level this gives the road its strength, line edges with Hot Liquid Tar, roll or beat until flush with road this leaving a neat tidy, flush, watertight and weathertight finished job this is definitely not the method being taught to SBC staff result is the potholes tar protrudes above the road, isn t flush, neat or tidy and isn t watertight or weathertight meaning those potholes need reinstating over and over again at great cost to the tax payer.
Response: Please see the below information for the last 5 financial years, including the current year

Year Claims Rec d Claims Settled Claims Open
2019/20 305 104 settled
2020/21 209 77 settled
2021/22 98 34 settled
2022/23 104 21 settled 2 open
2023/24 78 8 settled 45 open

Scottish Borders Council has nearly 3000 kilometres of adopted road to maintain across its area. Each year we compile our Planned Programme from our records of identified sections of carriageway in need of permanent patching and surface treatment. Unfortunately, the overall condition of our road network means that we are not in a position to treat all identified sections with a permanent form of treatment and must apply a prioritisation process to determine our annual programme which meets available budgets. This inevitably means that the remaining identified sections of carriageway have to be repaired and maintained using a more temporary type of treatment and these repairs can be severely impacted by periods of inclement weather.

Furthermore, the required timescale for the repair of actionable defects is determined by the categorisation of the defect, and it is not possible to meet these timescales whilst utilising permanent repair techniques for each defect noted.