THE worst areas for potholes in England have been revealed as some councils take 18 months to fill in the cracks.
Roads all over the country are blighted with potholes with the longest time to fix one being 567 days in Stoke-on-Trent.
The next worst area was Westminster City Council which took 556 days to fix a pothole.
Roads in disrepair are the bane of many drivers who face damaging their shock absorbers, broken wheels and broken suspension springs driving over the potholes.
It comes after the Prime Minister Rishi Sunak sought to focus on fixing Britain’s ailing roads in the run-up to May’s local elections.
Some 556,658 of the road defects were reported in the financial year 2021/22, up from 519,968 in 2017/18, according to data obtained from 81 councils who responded to an FOI request by the Liberal Democrats.
Many councils in England take more than a month on average to fix potholes once they have been reported.
The worst offending area was the London borough of Newham, where it took an average of 56 days to repair potholes once they were reported.
Lambeth, also in the capital, wasn’t far behind, with the council taking an average of 50 days to be fixed.
The third slowest area to fix potholes was Stoke-on-Trent, taking an average of 48 days.
In the worst cases, some potholes were left untreated for well over a year.
Stoke-on-Trent, Westminster, Norfolk, East Sussex and Wiltshire all had at least one pothole which went unrepaired for more than 12 months.
The longest a pothole went unrepaired was 567 days in Stoke-on-Trent, while another in Westminster was not dealt with for 556 days.
One in Norfolk took 482 days to be repaired.
Roads in Derbyshire County Council were the hardest hit with 90,596 potholes, followed closely by Lancashire County Council with 67,439 and Northumberland County Council with 51,703, according to the figures.
On a visit to Darlington last month, Mr Sunak highlighted new regulations that will see utility companies penalised for leaving streets in poor condition.
Mr Sunak said: “There’ll be more fines, more inspections, that’s also going to help. We want to make sure it’s easy for people to get around.”
Labour said the announcement echoed a 2021 Government pledge to make potholes a thing of the past and accused ministers of “broken promises”.
A Department for Transport spokesperson said: “We’re investing more than £5.5billion to maintain roads up and down the country, and cracking down on utility companies that leave potholes in their wake, so motorists and cyclists can enjoy smoother, safer journeys.”
