Potholes

Nigel Brinn, Corporate Director Rheoli Gwybodaeth/
(Economy and Environment) /
Cyfarwyddwr Corfforaethol (Yr Information Compliance
Economi a’r Amgylchedd)/
Neuadd Y Sir / County Hall

Spa Road East

Llandrindod Wells

Powys LD1 5LG
  If calling please ask for / Os yn galw
gofynnwch am
 
Information Compliance
 
Tel / Ffôn: 01597 82 7543
 
Email/Llythyru electronig:
  [1][email address]

Our ref / Ein cyf: 2021-1083F

Date / Dyddiad: 10/12/2021

Request Accepted

FREEDOM of INFORMATION ACT 2000

Dear Mr Hall

Thank you for your request for information, received at this office on
10/12/2021, in which you requested details of the following:

Potholes Reported

The above is a summary of your request. The full details of the
information sought is provided to the officer to whom the request is
tasked.

Your request will now be considered and you will receive a response within
the statutory timescale of 20 working days as defined by the Act, subject
to the information not being exempt or containing a reference to a third
party. In some circumstances Powys County Council may be unable to achieve
this deadline. If this is likely you will be informed and given a revised
time-scale at the earliest opportunity.

There may be a fee payable for the retrieval, collation and provision of
the information you request. If this is the case you will be informed and
the 20 working day timescale will be suspended until we receive payment
from you. If you choose not to make a payment then your request will
remain unanswered.

Some requests may also require either full or partial transference to
another public authority in order to answer your query in the fullest
possible way. Again, you will be informed if this is the case.

The due date for responding to this request for information is 13/01/2022.

Should you need to discuss this further please contact the Information
Compliance Team on 01597 827543.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your interest in
Powys County Council.

Yours sincerely,

Information Compliance Team

We keep your details safe and we have updated our privacy notice in line
with the requirements set out in General Data Protection Regulations. We
will only ever use the details you share with us to enable us to undertake
our statutory obligations. You can find out more by looking on our web
site. [2]https://en.powys.gov.uk/privacy

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2. https://en.powys.gov.uk/privacy

Nigel Brinn, Corporate Director Rheoli Gwybodaeth/
(Economy and Environment) /
Cyfarwyddwr Corfforaethol (Yr Information Compliance
Economi a’r Amgylchedd)/
Neuadd Y Sir / County Hall

Spa Road East

Llandrindod Wells

Powys LD1 5LG
If calling please ask for / Os yn galw
gofynnwch am

Tel / Ffôn: 01597 82 7543

Email/Llythyru electronig:
[1][email address]

Our ref / Ein cyf: 2021-1083E

Date / Dyddiad: 12/01/2022

Dear Mr Hall

Thank you for your request for information which was received by the
Authority on the 10/12/21.

This is to inform you that your request has been considered and the
Authority can provide the following response:

Request:

Please can you tell me how many potholes have been reported to the council
for every financial since 2017/18?

And how long, on average, does it take the council to repair a pothole
once it has been reported?

Response:

Powys County Council do not record the number of individual potholes and
as such Regulation 12(4)(a) of the EIR applies.  The recording system used
by the Highways team has changed and potholes are now reported under the
category “Road or Pavement”.  Consequently reports of potholes alone
cannot be easily separated from other reported problems.  Figures for the
last available data on potholes are given below. Please note that the
figures provided are reported occurrences of potholes and not the number
of potholes as some instances may contain more than one pothole.

2017/18: 515

2018/19: 532

In order to provide you with the figures for 2019/20 onwards, officers
would be required to manually check details within each record under the
category of “Road or Pavement” to determine whether the report is
regarding a pothole or another type of road defect.  The Authority
receives thousands of reports of road defects each year and as such, the
time required for officers to locate, retrieve and extract the data from
information held would be deemed as manifestly unreasonable under
Regulation 12(4)(b) of the Environmental Information Regulations (EIR)
2004.

In regards to the average time taken to repair a pothole once it has been
reported, this information is not recorded and as such Regulation 12(4)(a)
of the EIR applies.

Refusal to disclose information

14.—(1) If a request for environmental information is refused by a public
authority under regulations 12(1) or 13(1), the refusal shall be made in
writing and comply with the following provisions of this regulation.

(2) The refusal shall be made as soon as possible and no later than 20
working days after the date of receipt of the request.

(3) The refusal shall specify the reasons not to disclose the information
requested,

12.—(1) Subject to paragraphs (2), (3) and (9), a public authority may
refuse to disclose environmental information requested if—

 (4) For the purposes of paragraph (1)(a), a public authority may refuse
to disclose information to the extent that—

 a. it does not hold that information when an applicant’s request is
received;

We have considered your request and in this instance, the data is not held

Exception 12(4)(b) – Manifestly Unreasonable:

Exceptions to the duty to disclose environmental information:

12.—(1) Subject to paragraphs (2), (3) and (9), a public authority may
refuse to disclose environmental information requested if—

(a)an exception to disclosure applies under paragraphs (4) or (5); and

(b)in all the circumstances of the case, the public interest in
maintaining the exception outweighs the public interest in disclosing the
information.

(4) For the purposes of paragraph (1)(a), a public authority may refuse to
disclose information to the extent that—

 (b)the request for information is manifestly unreasonable;

The Commissioner has issued public guidance on the application of
regulation 12(4)(b). This guidance contains the Commissioner’s definition
of the regulation, which is taken to apply in circumstances where either
the request is 1) vexatious, or 2) where the cost of compliance with the
request would be too great. In this case the council considers that
circumstance 2) is applicable. The EIR does not contain a limit at which
the cost of compliance with a request is considered to be too great.
However, the Commissioner’s guidance suggests that public authorities may
use The Freedom of Information and Data Protection (Appropriate Limit and
Fees) Regulations 2004 as an indication of what Parliament considers to be
a reasonable charge for staff time.

We believe that this request is now complete. Should any further
information be required regarding this topic, a separate request will need
to be submitted.

We would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your interest in
Powys County Council.

Yours sincerely,

Information Compliance Team

The supply of documents under Freedom of Information does not give the
person or organisation who receives them an automatic right to re-use the
documents in a way that would infringe copyright.

You are free to use any information supplied for your own use, including
for non-commercial research purposes. The information may also be used for
the purposes of news reporting. However, any other type of re-use, for
example, by publishing the information or issuing copies to the public
will require the permission of the copyright owner. The copyright of most
of the information that we provide in response to Freedom of Information
Act requests will be owned by Powys County Council. The copyright in other
information may be owned by another person or organisation, as indicated
in the information itself. For HMSO Guidance Notes on a range of copyright
issues, see the Office of Public Sector Information(OPSI) website:
[2]http://www.opsi.gov.uk/advice/crown-copy...

If you are not satisfied with this response or wish to seek clarity, then
you should contact us, we will try and deal with your query informally, in
the first instance. If informal resolution is not possible or you are
still dissatisfied, then you may apply for a formal internal review by
contacting the Information Compliance Team at
[3][email address]. Please note that any request for
an internal review must be made within 40 working days of the date on
which the attempt to reach informal resolution has come to an end.

If you remain dissatisfied following an internal review, you may take your
complaint to the Information Commissioner under the provisions of Section
50 of the Freedom of Information Act

If you are still not satisfied following this, you can make an appeal to
the Information Commissioner, who is the statutory regulator. The
Information Commissioner can be contacted at:

Information Commissioner's Office

Wycliffe House

Water Lane

Wilmslow

SK95AF

Tel: 03031231113

Email: [4][email address]

[5]www.ico.org.uk

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References

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1. mailto:[email address]
2. http://www.opsi.gov.uk/advice/crown-copy...
3. mailto:[email address]
4. mailto:[email address]
5. http://www.ico.org.uk/