More than £660,000 has been spent filling in 12,000 potholes in Darlington in the last two years, The Northern Echo can reveal.
A staggering 14,442 potholes were reported to Darlington Borough Council in the last two full financial years, a Freedom of Information Request has found.
This includes the potholes identified on the council's routine highway inspections, which sees workers set out on routes around the town looking for road defects.
A total of £660,205.82 was spent on fixing 12,433 potholes across the two years (2023/24 and 2024/25), broken down as 6,102 and 6,341, respectively.
These figures are higher than 2022/23 (5,332) and 2020/21 (5,942) but less than 2021/22 (6,544).
The council said it “works all year round to ensure roads are kept in the best possible condition” - and takes pothole repairs “very seriously”.
A spokesperson said: “A well-maintained road network is important for the safety of all road users, and we take pothole repairs very seriously.
“Over the past two years we have invested more than £660,000 in repairing potholes, with thousands of defects filled to keep our roads safe and usable.
“We repair all defects identified by our highway inspectors or reported by the public, prioritising those that are the most urgent.
“We also carry out planned maintenance to help reduce the number of new potholes forming. Our highways team works all year round to ensure roads are kept in the best possible condition.”
The council, on average, fills in an average of between 6,000 and 8,000 potholes a year across its 558.3 km long road network and 628.6km of footpaths.
If a pothole on a road is less than 40mm or less than 20mm on a footpath, it may not be repaired - but it will still continue to be monitored.
The town has been synonymous with potholes since a now-viral photo showed then Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, ex-Darlington MP Peter Gibson, Cllr Jonathan Dulston and Tees Valley Mayor Ben Houchen pointing at a crater in the road in April 2023.
A previous FOI from The Northern Echo found that about £1.5 million had been spent on repairing more than 25,000 potholes in the past four years.
Comparing with a previous FOI data set shows the council has spent less money in the last two years on repairing potholes (£345,115 in 2023/24 and £315,090.82 in 2024/25) compared to the three years prior.
The news comes months after the Government announced a crackdown on the ‘pothole plague’ across the country, demanding councils prove their progress or risk losing cash.
£1.6 billion investment was allocated to tackle the scourge of potholes across local authorities from April, including an extra £500 million, enough to fill seven million potholes each year.
But to get the full amount, all councils have to publish annual progress reports - with those failing seeing a 25 per cent of the uplift (£125 million in total) withheld.
You can report a pothole using the council's website or by calling 01325-405222.
