DEVON County Council have tackled more than 40,000 potholes in the five first months of 2018.

The shocking figure was revealed by the council’s highways boss in response to concerns from members of the public and councillors about safety defects on the roads. The council have received nearly half the number of complaints about potholes that they did in 2017 in just the first three months of 2018.

Meg Booth, chief officer for Highways, Infrastructure Development and Waste, told councillors on June 12: ‘We have had a bad winter and have had lots of issues on the highway, which was exacerbated by the snow events.

‘To put it into context, we have dealt with over 40,000 potholes in the first five months of the year. But I am aware that the service that the public have been expected of us, we haven’t been delivering.

‘We have been trying to keep on top of the safety defects on the roads, but it has been at the expense of some of the other potholes that have been reported.’

A recent Freedom of Information Request to the council revealed that from 2010 to March 27, 2018, there had been 771,507 reports and complaints about potholes that the council had received.

In 2016 there were 71,743 reports, 64,248 in 2017 and then until March 27 in 2018, there had been 30,408.

Cllr Jerry Brook said that he was being bombarded by members of the public who report potholes but then nothing happens about it.

He said: ‘The main criticism is that a team comes in to fix a hole, then goes off somewhere, and then comes back two days later to the same place to a pothole that was there the first time.’

Cllr Andrew Eastman said: ‘As I understand it, they are not allowed to fix other potholes in close proximity as they have been told not to do anything unless they are instructed to do it. To me, I find that incredible to comprehend.’

Mrs Booth told councillors that if the contractors Skanska do something that they haven’t been asked to, then they are at risk of not being paid.

She added though: ‘What is annoying to me is that when I drive on a road and see a pothole we have filled and there is one down the road.’

She said that looking forward the council would be trialling some different ways of working with Skanska, and added: ‘We have fixated on safety defects rather than problems on the highway, but the question is should we be focusing on that instead?’

The Corporate Infrastructure and Regulatory Services Scrutiny Committee agreed that a task force group should be set up to look into the issue of potholes and would report back to the committee at a later date.