Column by South Gloucestershire Council's cabinet member for regeneration, environment and strategic infrastructure, Steve Reade.

I was really pleased by the confirmation last week that the council is to receive £2.82m from the Government’s £2.5 billion Potholes Fund.

The new funding will add to our continued record four-year investment of £174 million in local roads and will allow us to further improve our streets maintenance across South Gloucestershire in the coming year. Our Streetcare teams already repair more than 11,000 potholes each year. Throughout the pandemic, they have kept working while ensuring the safety of both their workforce and the public, by maintaining bubbles with strict protocols. Nonetheless, this work has been easier to carry out, especially on our busier roads.

We are now asking you to help us by reporting potholes so we can keep up this effort. Please let us know if you see potholes that are as wide as a 12-inch LP record (300mm) and as deep as a snooker ball (50mm). You can do this online at southglos.gov.uk/reportit or call our Street Care contact centre on 01454 868000. We’ve produced a short infographic video too on ‘When to report a pothole’ which you can find on our YouTube channel. Although we’ll inspect all potholes that are reported to us, even with additional resources, we must of course prioritise and so we cannot repair those which are not 300mm wide by 50mm deep.

Safety is our top priority, of course, so if a hole is in the middle of a main road, we can fix it within 24 hours so that our residents and visitors can get around safely.

We will always let you know in advance if your road is to be affected by major work. When work starts, there will be people on-site to help with access and to provide information. We also keep you up-to-date about the roads we are maintaining, resurfacing and repairing through our Streetcare Facebook page. If you’re not online, please call the Streetcare contact centre number above to keep in touch.

Thank you for supporting us whilst we continue to make South Gloucestershire a great place to live and work.