NEW research has found that 51 potholes were found on Dumfries and Galloway’s roads every day last year.
The Round Our Way campaign group has been looking into the state of the UK’s roads and sent freedom of information requests to all councils to find out how many craters they recorded each year since 2018.
In response, Dumfries and Galloway Council revealed they recorded 15,920 between January and November last year.
That is the equivalent of 1447 a month, or 362 a week, or about 51 every day.
Furthermore, the total recorded by the council since 2019, when data was available, comes to 65,578.
That puts the region as the third worst overall in Scotland, behind Edinburgh and Glasgow, but also makes it the worst Scottish rural local authority.
However, Round Our Way did note that the 2023 number was a one per cent decrease on 2022 when there were 16,025 potholes locally, although that was a full year.
Commenting on the study, Round Our Way director Roger Harding: “Potholes are the bane of many of our lives and put drivers, cyclists and even pedestrians at risk of serious injury. The weather extremes that climate change brings are sadly creating many more of them at a time when cuts mean repairs are already not keeping up.”
Meanwhile, Dumfries and Galloway also fared badly in a second pothole poll.
The South of Scotland was named ‘home to the worst area
roads of all regions in Britain’ by SmartSurvey.
They analysed potholes registrations via FixMyStreet.com for 68 ‘cities’ across England, Scotland and Wales, excluding London. For the purposes of the research, South Scotland was categorised as a city.
Their report said: “The region with the most city potholes per capita is South Scotland. On average, one should expect to spot a pothole once for every 211 inhabitants. This drives up the statistics for the whole of Scotland, making it the worst country for unresolved city-road pothole complaints.”
Dumfries and Galloway Council last year signed off on a huge £30m capital roads investment over the next four years.
But an update for councillors in December revealed the latest estimate of the maintenance backlog was “in excess of £254m” and officials admitted: “There is a considerable length of the network that requires further work to bring it back into a good condition”
