£1.4m poured into repairing county’s 15,000 potholes
A survey has revealed the true depth of Kent’s pothole problem, with almost 15,000 reported in one year alone.
The total depth of all the craters combined would equal 167 double decker buses stacked on top of each other – or 10 times the height of Canterbury Cathedral.
A freedom of information request to Kent County Council (KCC) and Medway Council revealed 14,698 potholes in 2016, each with an average depth of 5cm.
The research, carried out by Confused.com, calculated the depth combined as 735m, almost half a mile, by multiplying the minimum pothole depth by number of holes reported.
However, Surrey comes out on top for having the deepest problem in the South East, followed by Oxfordshire, with Kent falling into third place.
The figures also show Kent authorities handed out considerably less in compensation for vehicle damage than other counties, at just £26,374, including Hampshire, which dished out £152,630 despite having 1,213 fewer holes than Kent.
Toby Howe, senior highway manager for KCC Highways, says this shows the council acts quickly to fix road issues.
He said: “We do have very specific targets to make sure we know which potholes to repair.
“Compensation claims happen if we haven’t met our own criteria, so if we’re aware of a pothole and we didn’t repair it in time.
“We have a really good online reporting system and it will show the location and progress of the repair.
“We have 5,500 miles of road so things will be missed but we’re relying on the public to help us in reporting the potholes they see.”
In the same period, authorities in the South East spent £12,206,226 repairing roads with Kent contributing £1,386,097.
In the summer Hythe cyclist Clare Pryke called for better road maintenance after suffering serious injuries when she hit a dip.
KCC launched a major campaign in April, and last month, committed to spending £5.2 million filling holes before Christmas.
About a third of motorists in the UK say their car has been damaged by a pothole at some stage.
Amanda Stretton, motoring editor at Confused.com, says around £3.1 million has been paid out to motorists whose cars have been damaged by potholes.