How the leaderboard is calculated
We publish this in full so councils, residents and journalists can check our working.
Where the data comes from
Every figure comes from pothole reports submitted by the public, excluding any we have removed. Each report is tied to an official UK local authority using the postcode of the location, so a report always counts towards the council responsible for that road.
A pothole is counted as repaired when the council marks it repaired in their repair desk, or when a member of the public marks it fixed. Reporters are asked to confirm, and can dispute a repair if the hole is still there.
The four measures
Repair rate, the share of a council's reported potholes now marked repaired.
Time to repair, the median number of days between a report being logged and the repair being recorded. We use the median so a handful of very old reports can't distort the figure.
Trust score, of the repairs where a reporter responded, the share they confirmed rather than disputed.
Backlog, how many reports are still open right now. Shown for context; it does not feed the score, because a big council will always have more reports than a small one.
The overall score
Each council gets a score out of 100, weighted like this:
- 45% repair rate
- 30% speed, full marks for a same-week median, zero once the median passes 60 days
- 25% trust score
Where a council has no confirmed or disputed repairs yet, the trust score starts at 100% and moves as reporters respond. Where there are no repairs at all, the speed element is scored neutrally rather than as a failure.
A council is only given a rank once it has at least 10 reports, so a single pothole can't push a small authority to the top or bottom of the table.
Known limitations
These figures cover potholes reported through PotholeMap only, not everything a council repairs. Councils with more active residents will show more reports, and a low report count is not the same as good roads.
Trunk roads and motorways are managed by national agencies rather than the local council, so reports on those roads may be attributed to the surrounding authority.
Figures update continuously as new reports, repairs and confirmations come in. If you work for a council and believe something is wrong, get in touch through our councils page.