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Preston and South Ribble’s most pothole-ridden roads can be revealed.
Lancashire County Council – responsible for maintaining the roads in the city and surrounding boroughs – released under a Freedom of Information request by Blog Preston the total cost of repairing the city’s roads.
It comes as the total number of ‘structural defects’ reported to the county council about roads across Preston and South Ribble have soared.
Read more: State of Preston’s streets likely to remain top priority for residents
Preston saw 7,708 reports from drivers between 1 April 2023 to 1 April 2024, up from 5,819 in the same period between 2022-2023.
And in South Ribble the number of reports of defects on the road leapt from 3,725 in 22-23 to 6,117 for 23-24.
County Hall say they spent £1.805m repairing the roads across Preston and South Ribble between April 2023 through to April 2024 with £946,000 spent in Preston and £859,000 spent in South Ribble.
Blog Preston also asked the county council for the roads with the most reports of potholes.
Roads with the most road defects reported in Preston between 1 April 2023- 1 April 2024
Blackpool Road – 615
Garstang Road – 536
James Towers Way – 307
Watling Street Road – 291
New Hall Lane – 166
London Road – 155
Fishergate – 154
Church Street – 143
Sir Tom Finney Way – 136
Inglewhite Road – 131
Longridge Road – 130
Ribbleton Lane – 129
Goosnargh Lane – 118
Lea Road – 115
Eastway – 112
Bluebell Way – 108
Black Bull Lane – 105
Haighton Green Lane – 105
Ribbleton Avenue – 101
Ring Way – 99
Roads with the most road defects reported in South Ribble between 1 April 2023- 1 April 2024
Cuerden Way (Bamber Bridge) – 494
Liverpool Road (Penwortham) – 329
John Horrocks Way (Penwortham) – 300
Leyland Road (Penwortham) – 190
Liverpool Road (Hutton) – 180
Church Road (Leyland) – 123
Golden Hill Lane (Leyland) – 120
Broadfield Drive (Leyland) – 110
Cop Lane (Penwortham) – 103
Langdale Road (Leyland) – 103
School Lane (Leyland) – 95
Station Road (Bamber Bridge) – 92
Chain House Lane (Whitestake) – 89
Dawson Lane (Leyland) – 88
Leyland Lane (Leyland) – 88
London Way (Walton-le-Dale) – 88
King Street (Leyland) – 87
Comet Road (Moss Side) – 82
Hough Lane (Leyland) – 81
Victoria Road (Walton-le-Dale) – 79
Read more: Lancashire County Council blasted over suggestions of short-term ‘blobbing’ pothole repair method
What the county council had to say
Lancashire County Council’s cabinet member for highways and transport, county councillor Rupert Swarbrick, told Blog Preston: “Last winter broke long-standing UK records for rainfall levels which resulted in councils across the UK having far more potholes to deal with than in a normal year as the persistent wet weather combined with freezing spells to cause a lot of damage to the roads.
“This presented a huge challenge for our highways teams to simply keep our roads safe and deal with the large number of defects appearing, which as the figures show have been far higher than usual over the past winter.
“The scale of the damage left by the winter has had an ongoing impact, and our teams have been working extremely hard to repair the defects, but we are still finding more potholes every month compared with the same period the previous year.
“We have added significantly to our resources to be able to fix potholes within our target timescales by bringing in contractors to assist our highways teams, and are using the best methods available to ensure each repair lasts, and can withstand the trend towards wetter weather which we’re currently experiencing.
“As is usual in the summer months, the number of defects has begun to reduce slightly, and our teams make the most of the better weather to carry out our annual programme of highway maintenance.
“We are focused on making our roads as resilient as we can with the resources available by next winter, which is why in May we added an extra £4m to the budget to carry out small patching and resurfacing schemes to the localised areas where the worst deterioration has occurred, and reduce the need for repeated safety repairs in future.
“Our teams are currently working very hard to improve our roads, and people may be experiencing some disruption to their journeys as a result – I’d ask everyone to please bear with us as we carry out this vital maintenance.
“I’d also ask people to report potholes or any other safety issues using the Love Clean Streets app, via our website or by calling our customer service centre, so that we can carry out prompt inspections and repairs.”
City leader blasts state of the city’s roads
Preston City Council leader, councillor Matthew Brown, who is also a county councillor for the Preston Central West division told Blog Preston: “The state of Preston’s roads has descended to a new low with this ongoing lack of support for our public infrastructure. Over seven years of an unresponsive Tory County Council alongside austerity has made the situation intolerable.
“Whilst we welcome significant investment in new highways as part of City Deal we helped facilitate at Preston City Council as a partner it makes no sense much of our existing roads are covered in deep potholes damaging vehicles and causing disruption.
“As Leader of Preston City Council and a member of the opposition LCC Labour Group my colleagues and I will keep challenging the current LCC Leadership to substantially improve the situation.”
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