Council paid £1m in pothole claims, figures show

A council paid more than £1m in pothole claims over five years, from April 2020 to March 2025 - more than any other local authority in England, Scotland or Wales, according to figures supplied to the BBC.

Shropshire Council received 3,472 claims for compensation in that period and ranked third for the number of cases in which it then paid compensation.

In contrast, another West Midlands authority, Walsall Council, paid out just £1,271 over the same period, having received 107 claims.

The Shropshire authority said the number of claims came as no surprise because it had one of the longest networks of roads in England.

Other West Midlands authorities to pay out large sums of money in pothole claims over the period included Coventry City Council, £241,141 and Birmingham City Council, £178,269.

Of the 207 "upper-tier" local authorities asked for data, nearly a quarter did not respond to the BBC's request at all, including Warwickshire County Council, Staffordshire County Council and Stoke-on-Trent City Council.

Another 5% provided incomplete figures.

An upper-tier local authority is usually defined as one which sits above district and borough councils and which is responsible for services such as education, waste disposal and adult social care.

They include county councils and unitary authorities.

The £1,033,236 paid out by Shropshire Council was almost £80,000 more than the second authority on the list, Derbyshire.

Shropshire also paid compensation in 70% of the claims made to the authority.

Its neighbour, Telford and Wrekin Council, only received 266 claims and paid 6.8% of them - a total of £3,703.

Other West Midlands councils which paid out in a low proportion of cases included Worcestershire with 8.8%, Walsall with 10.3% and Wolverhampton with 11.3%.

Herefordshire Council paid compensation in 9% of claims, although it provided figures for a different period, 2021-2026.

David Vasmer, the Shropshire councillor responsible for highways, said he encouraged people to report potholes.

"If people have damage to their vehicles then we must pay them compensation," he added.

Vasmer is a member of the Liberal Democrat group which took over the authority last year, so the figures applied to the previous Conservative administration.

They came as no surprise to him though.

"We have one of the longest networks of roads in the whole of England," he said.

"You could almost get to New York on our roads if they were stretched out together, so obviously we're going to have a lot more claims for compensation."

Since the Liberal Democrats came to power, the council had repaired more than 30,000 potholes and taken on three extra repair teams this year to tackle the problem.

Vasmer said there was a possibility of adding to that: "We need to get on top of this in the summer months when the number of potholes will decline."

But he said the long-term solution was to carry out more surface dressing, which saw a treatment applied to roads to preserve and seal them.

"That will get on top of the potholes and stop them being created," he said.

Additional reporting by Ema Sabljak, from the BBC England Data Unit, and Amy Sharp.

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