The small Scottish council that spent nearly £500,000 fixing potholes in a single year

Nearly £500,000 was spent fixing potholes across East Lothian last year – a drop of more than 10 per cent on the previous year’s bill.

East Lothian Council has revealed it spent £485,120 repairing 5,358 potholes on county roads last year.

A council spent £500,000 fixing potholes last year | Contributed

However, the council revealed that despite the thousands of road defects, only 47 claims for compensation were made by drivers who struck them.

The latest repair bill for the roads was revealed after an Environmental Information Request was submitted.

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The document revealed that in 2019/20, the cost of repairing potholes in the council area was lower at £460,688, falling even further during the first year of Covid and lockdowns to £422,445.

In the year after lockdown in 2021/22, the cost rocketed to £597,110.

During that same year the council received 42 claims for damages from drivers who said their vehicles were damaged by potholes. Despite the number of claims, the council paid out less than £100.

At the time the council revealed it had hired an external claims assessor to handle bids for compensation, which vastly reduced the amount paid out.

Last year, however, it faced a higher bill, paying out £2719 for 47 claims.