We acknowledge receipt of your request to Manchester City Council,
concerning:

Pothole reports and repairs

If your request comes under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA) or
the Environmental Information Regulations 2004 (EIR), we will aim to
respond as promptly as we can and by no later than 20 working days.
Sometimes an extension to that timescale will apply and we will let you
know if that is the case.

If some or all of your request needs to be considered under processes
other than those provided by FOIA or EIR, different timescales may apply.
In particular, any part of your request that concerns your own personal
information will be considered in line with your rights under data
protection legislation (including the right of access) and we will aim to
provide you with a response in respect of that part of your request
without undue delay and by no later than one calendar month, unless an
extension to that timescale applies (we will let you know if that is the
case).

 

The reference number for your request is FOI/15329.

 

Should you have any further inquiries concerning your request, please
reply to this email leaving the subject line unchanged.

Yours sincerely
Manchester City Council

Your personal data is very important to us. Please refer to our privacy
notice at [1]www.manchester.gov.uk/privacy for further information.

References

Visible links
1. http://www.manchester.gov.uk/privacy

Dear Mr Dixon

Re: Request for Information – Pothole reports and repairs - Reference
number: FOI15329

Thank you for your request for information, which was received by
Manchester City Council on 14th February 2025. The Council has considered
the information requested and is satisfied that it falls within the broad
definition of "environmental information” in the Environmental Information
Regulations 2004 (EIR). Your request for information has therefore been
considered under the provisions of the EIR.

The detail of your request and the Council's response is provided below.

I am requesting information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000
regarding potholes in the council area. I understand different councils
may define potholes and repairs differently, so I would appreciate
clarification if your council applies a specific threshold for logging or
repairing potholes.

I would like to request the following data for the past five calendar
years (2020–2024):

1. The number of potholes recorded each year, including potholes reported
by the public and confirmed through council inspections (if these are
reported differently)
2. The number of individual potholes repaired each year, including
temporary repairs (e.g., patching) and permanent repairs (e.g.,
resurfacing). Note this refers to the number of individual potholes that
were repaired, not the total number of repairs.
3. The total annual cost of pothole repairs, if available.

Council's response
The Council's Customer Records Management (CRM) system does hold
information on the number of perceived potholes reported. However, it
should be noted that multiple requests may be generated reporting the same
defect and a single report may contain more than one report of a defect.
The number of requests received does not necessarily mean there is an
actual pothole and many of these prove to be non-actionable. Therefore, to
obtain the information you are requesting would require a manual search of
each CRM report.

While there is no fixed cost limit under the EIR (unlike the Freedom of
Information Act (FoIA) where there is a statutory cost limit of £450
(which is calculated as being approximately 18 hours or 2.5 days of a
Council officers time to determine whether the Council holds the
information, locate, retrieve and extract the information), Regulation
12(4)(b) of the EIR provides that the Council may refuse to disclose
information to the extent that "the request for information is manifestly
unreasonable”.

Although the EIR also provide that a reasonable charge may be levied for
answering EIR requests, public authorities have been encouraged to align
their FoIA and EIR charging policies to ensure consistency and avoid
unfairness.. The Council has therefore decided that EIR applicants should
be treated the same as FoIA applicants and that no charge should be levied
if a request is capable of being serviced under the FoIA cost limit.

Where an EIR request would exceed 18 hours of Council officer's time, the
Council has decided that the criteria for triggering the manifestly
unreasonable exception in Regulation 12(4)(b) of the EIR should be
interpreted consistently with the cost limit under FoIA (referred to
above).

In assessing the level of costs that might be incurred in responding to a
request, the ICO suggests that public authorities use a rate of £25 per
hour for any staff time involved. Using an average time of 3 minutes per
report, it is estimated that the locate, retrieve and extract the
requested information would exceed £450.

The Council therefore considers that on cost grounds, the manifestly
unreasonable exception is engaged.  Accordingly, the Council has
considered the public interest test:

Public interest factors in favour of disclosure
• The general public interest in transparency
• The Council is aware that Regulation 12(2) of the EIRs specifically
states that a public authority shall apply a presumption in favour of
disclosure and has taken this into account in deciding where the balance
of the public interest test lies.

Public interest factors in favour of maintaining the exception
• Complying with your request would be too burdensome to deal with.
• Compliance would expose relevant officers to an unjustified level of
disruption affecting their ability to carry out day to day duties and
operations that the Council cannot reasonably be expected to comply.

Taking the above factors into account, and having applied the presumption
in favour of disclosure, the Council has determined that the public
interest favours maintaining the exception.

Normally, the Council would explore with you how you might be able to
narrow down your request so that it did not exceed the fees limit.
However, in this instance l cannot see any scope for doing this.

In relation to the annual cost pothole repairs, Manchester Highways has a
blended budget for road maintenance funding which includes potholes,
resurfacing, maintenance, and other road repairs. This means there is no
single budget for potholes for the period specified in your request and it
is not possible to dis-aggregate spend to the level of detail requested.

The information supplied to you may be subject to copyright. You are free
to use it for your own purposes, including any non-commercial research you
are doing, and for the purposes of news reporting. Any other re-use (for
example, commercial publication) would require the permission of the
copyright holder.

If you wish to re-use the information provided other than for reasons
already outlined above, you must submit the request to us in writing, with
your name and address for correspondence, and you must specify the
information you want to re-use and the purpose you intend to use it for.
We will then consider your request under the Re-use of Public Sector
Information Regulations 2015.

If you are not satisfied with the response to your request, you may ask
the Council for an internal review. This will be undertaken by an officer
not involved in handling your request. If you wish an internal review to
be undertaken you should contact the Democratic Services Legal Team who
can be contacted by post or email: Democratic Services Legal Team, PO Box
532, Town Hall, Manchester M60 2LA Email:
[MCC request email]

When requesting an internal review, please explain which parts of the
request handling and/or response you are unhappy with so that we can
address your concerns in the internal review process.

A copy of the Council's access to information complaints procedure can be
accessed here:
http://www.manchester.gov.uk/downloads/d....

If you are not happy with the outcome of the internal review process once
it is completed, you have the right to apply directly to the Information
Commissioner for a decision.

You should primarily contact the Information Commissioner on the following
link:

www.ico.org.uk/foicomplaints

Alternatively, the Information Commissioner can also be contacted at:

Information Commissioners Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF

Tel: 0303 123 1113
Fax: 01625 524510
www.ico.org.uk

The Information Commissioner will generally expect that you have exhausted
the Council's Information Complaints Procedure before he will consider a
complaint.

If you have any queries about this letter, please contact me. Please
remember to quote the reference number above in any future communications.

Yours sincerely

Kevin Gillham
Head of Network Management
Highways Service