Recent figures have shown that Hampshire has the second highest number of pot-hole reports in the country.

According to Fill That Hole, Hampshire has had 6112 reports from 2007 to 2022. This is behind Surrey who have 10310 reports in the same time period.

Of the total number of reports in Hampshire, only 16 per cent of them have been fixed, meaning there are 5064 cases currently open and are waiting to be fixed by Hampshire County Council. Surrey have 8843 open reports.

Third in the list is Kent with 4152 open cases total reports, fourth: Herefordshire with 3803, fifth: Essex with 3799, sixth: Lancashire with 3677, seventh: Devon with 3553, eighth: Cheshire East with 3154, ninth: Buckinghamshire with 3104 and tenth: Oxfordshire with 3061.  

The most recent report of a pot-hole in Winchester is from January 22. It is on Bereweeke Road, near Peter Symonds College, and is described as being a danger to two-wheeled vehicles. It has an approximate size of 25x12.5cm and depth of 8cm.

Another report of a pot-hole comes from the B2177 near Wickham and just outside Rookesbury Park, on January 20. This was described as a deep hole in the road, very obvious about 30cm from edge of road.

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A pot-hole was also reported on January 14 near Sparsholt College on the bend of Westley Lane. It was described as a massive pot-hole which is 10cm deep and 30x30cm in size.

At the start of January, a 50cm long pot-hole was reported on Chilbolton Avenue, near Royal Winchester Golf Club.

Many of the pot-holes reported on the website do not give exact location, but do give descriptions of the extent of the road damage. 

Hampshire County Council’s Executive Member for Highways Operations, Councillor Russell Oppenheimer, said:

"Looking after Hampshire’s network of over 5,500 miles of road is one of our key priorities. Each year we carry out a wide range of highway maintenance work using the limited Government funding that we receive in addition to £10 million of County Council funding for ‘Operation Resilience’, our planned maintenance programme aimed at ensuring our roads are more resilient to the impact of heavy traffic and adverse weather. Recently, the County Council agreed an additional £7 million investment per year for highway maintenance and we are currently developing a highways network recovery strategy that will set out a long term plan for how Hampshire’s road and footway assets will be managed, maintained and restored.  

“We continue to work hard to keep our network in a serviceable condition as far as possible and in the last financial year (2020/2021) we completed more than £50 million of major road, transport infrastructure and safety improvement schemes, as well as 478 planned highway maintenance schemes. In addition 28,825 highway defects (including potholes) were repaired.

“We are always grateful to receive reports of highway issues from residents, via our online reporting system, so that we can inspect, prioritise and programme repairs accordingly. Defects can be reported using the online form on our website: https://www.hants.gov.uk/transport/roadmaintenance.”

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Kimberley Barber