All pothole repairs to be inspected, council says

A council, which paid out more than £1m in pothole claims over the last five years, is going to inspect its road repairs after suspicions some of the repairs had been "poor".

A lack of inspections had allowed "indifferent workmanship to go unchallenged, with poor repairs opening up after far too short a time," Shropshire Council leader Heather Kidd said.

The authority has been given an extra £1.5m by the government for extra road repairs and has fixed 30,000 potholes in the last 12 months.

The council would introduce a team of inspectors to examine all completed road repairs and if they are not up to standard, it would insist the work is redone, she said.

The Lib Dem-run council said it is responsible for one of the longest road networks in England.

The first road repair-inspectors had already been hired, she said.

More potholes were expected to appear, "given the heavy use of our roads," Kidd said, and she encouraged people to carry on reporting them.

A recent BBC study found Shropshire Council paid out £1,033,236 in pothole compensation claims between April 2020 and March 2025.

That was the largest sum for any local authority in England, Scotland and Wales.

The data also showed the council received 3,472 claims for compensation in that period.

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