Swindon Borough Council has said it simply doesn't have the money to tackle the town's potholes properly. 

In an update on what it's doing to repair the town's damaged roads, the local authority explained that reactive and temporary repairs were necessary because it couldn't afford to fully resurface roads. 

A spokesperson said: "It’s a fair question, why do we spend money on reactive pothole repairs - isn’t it better to tackle the root cause by resurfacing roads, rather than fix them with a ‘sticking plaster’?

"In an ideal world we’d have the money needed to keep potholes at bay, by resurfacing and upgrading roads as they wear out."

"But core spending power of councils has been cut by 23.3 per cent in real terms in 2024/25 compared to 2010/11, according to the Local Government Association."

It says a simple pothole takes about 20 minutes to repair by two people with minimum machinery and materials, at a cost of around £48.

But when a more long-term repair is needed, such as a patch repair, where the road needs to be dug up, these repairs are more expensive (around £83 per metre square) 

Last month, the council's highways team completed 1477 pothole repairs across Swindon, of which 1454 were fixed within five working days of being reported.

A total of 1,391 of these were identified by a team of five highway inspectors who regularly check 522 miles of Swindon’s roads and all 646 miles of paths/pavements and 76 miles of cycle paths

And 219 repairs were reported by residents, of which 86 were in the criteria for a repair.

Potholes can be reported by members of the public via the Swindon Borough Council website which can be found here.

The spokesperson added: "As our budget is limited, we risk assess and prioritise repairs as follows:

"For a pothole to be considered a safety defect, it must be at least 40mm deep in the road surface, potholes that pose a very high level of safety risk are completed within 24 hours.

"We aim to complete all other pothole repairs within 10 working days, with the majority completed within 5 working days. Other defects may be programmed for a longer period of repair of up to six weeks.

"For defects less than 40mm deep - a risk assessment is made in line with our Carriageway and Footway Defects Management Plan to determine if the defect is a hazard and if a repair is necessary.