How to Report a Pothole in Severn: A Step-by-Step Guide to Council Repairs

A good pothole is hard to miss. You feel it before you see it — the thud, the rattle from the glovebox, the wince as the wheel drops into the crater. The one on the edge of the village has probably been there since January. The bad news is that nobody is driving around looking for it. The good news is that reporting a pothole takes about two minutes, and the reports that get acted on fastest are the ones with the right detail in them.

Who Actually Fixes Roads Around Severn

Roads in and around Severn are looked after by the county council, not the parish or town council. That distinction matters, because it is the single most common reason a report goes nowhere. Parish and town councils can pass on your complaint, but they cannot send out a gang with tarmac.

In practice, responsibility splits roughly like this:

• County council: most public roads, including A-roads, B-roads and the village lanes
• District or borough council: car parks, some footpaths and public open space
• Private land: the landowner — a farm track, a supermarket car park, a shared driveway
• National Highways: motorways and major trunk roads

Report a pothole on a private lane to the county council and you will get a polite reply explaining that it is not theirs. Worth knowing before you spend ten minutes on the form.

Before You Report: Quick Checks

A couple of minutes of preparation saves a lot of back-and-forth.

• Check what it actually is. A sunken drain cover, a broken cattle grid or a collapsed verge are all reportable, but they go to different teams. Say which one it is.
• See if it has already been reported. Many council reporting tools and independent sites like FixMyStreet show existing reports on a map. Adding your own still helps — volume signals a road that needs attention — but you may not need to write a fresh description.
• Don't report the same hole three times a week. Duplicate reports create admin work and rarely speed anything up.

And a word on safety: don't stand in the road, don't stop on a bend, and don't try to measure a pothole while traffic is coming. Take your photo from the pavement.

How to Report a Pothole, Step by Step

1. Find the right channel. The county council's website has a highways reporting form for potholes, damaged kerbs, broken signs and drainage problems. If the form will not load or you would rather speak to someone, ring the council's highways line and have the location and a description ready before you call.
2. Pin the location as precisely as you can. Use the map tool if there is one, then back it up in words: "junction of the lane and the main road, opposite the bus stop."
3. Describe the defect. How wide, roughly how deep, and whether the edges are crumbling.
4. Add photographs. Two is usually enough: one close-up, one showing the road around it so an inspector can find the spot.
5. Say what is nearby. A school gate, a blind bend, a cycle route, a bus stop — anything that raises the risk.
6. Note any damage. If the pothole has already cost you a tyre or a wheel, say so and give the date.
7. Save the reference number. Screenshot the confirmation. You will want it later.

The Details That Get a Pothole Fixed Faster

Three things carry the most weight with an inspector: location, severity and evidence.

Location

"Opposite number 14" beats "on the high street". If you know which direction of travel and which side of the road, say so. A what3words reference or a grid pin helps if you have one to hand.

Severity

Compare it to something. "About the size of a dinner plate, deep enough to swallow a bike wheel" tells an inspector more than any measurement you guess at. Mention if it fills with water after rain, because a pothole that holds water breaks up quickly and often points to a drainage problem underneath.

Evidence

A photo with something for scale — a coin, a boot, a wheel — removes all doubt. Daylight shots are far more useful than flash photographs taken after dark.

What Happens Next — and How Long It Takes

Your report is logged and passed to a highways inspector, who visits and assesses it against the council's intervention criteria: the thresholds that decide what gets fixed and what waits. Not every pothole meets them. A shallow dip in a quiet cul-de-sac may be noted and left until a wider resurfacing scheme covers the road.

If the defect is judged a safety risk, expect a make-safe or temporary repair reasonably quickly, with a permanent patch later. Routine repairs are usually batched into a programme for the area, so they move at the pace of that schedule rather than your report.

This is why timelines vary so wildly. A deep pothole on a busy route with heavy traffic can be filled within days. A shallow one on a lane used by a dozen cars a day can sit for months. Nobody will put it in exactly those words, but that is how the priorities work.

When Nothing Happens: Chasing It Up

Keep the reference number and use it. If nothing has changed after a few weeks:

• Reply to the confirmation email or ring the highways line and ask for the inspection date and the decision.
• Ask which intervention criteria was applied and why the defect did not meet it.
• Raise it with your county councillor. They can take it straight to the highways team and often get a status update faster than a general enquiry.
• Report it again if it has got noticeably worse. A deteriorating pothole can be re-assessed, and worsening damage changes the picture.
• If it has damaged your vehicle, record the date, time and location, photograph everything, and keep the repair invoice. Ask the council for its claims procedure — and note that whether a claim succeeds often depends on whether the council had a reasonable opportunity to inspect and repair. For anything beyond a small amount, take proper advice before you pursue it.

Stay Persistent, and Stay Safe

Two minutes on a form is a small price for a road that does not cost you a wheel alignment every spring. Save your reference number, take the photo before you forget, and if the first report disappears into the system, send a second one with the same details. Potholes get fixed when enough people point at the same hole in the same place — and yours might be the report that tips a lane onto the schedule.

Photo: Thom Gonzalez / Pexels