More than 15,000 potholes have been repaired across West Sussex between April and September 2026, the county council says, as it prepares roads and drainage for winter.
The council’s 23 October update also reports more than 110,200 square metres of patching. It attributes damage to wet winter conditions and summer heat, which softened some road surfaces.
Drainage clearance is planned at 63 flood-prone locations over the eight weeks following the announcement. The council says 29,645 drainage assets have been cleaned since 1 April, alongside 75 repair and improvement schemes.
Repairs and winter preparation
A new thermal repair unit heats and reworks existing asphalt, allowing several defects to be treated together. The council is also introducing equipment to wet gritting salt before spreading it, helping it stick to the road.
Those are maintenance measures rather than a guarantee against winter disruption. The reported repair total does not establish that every outstanding defect has been fixed.
What the repair total does and does not show
The council also publishes pothole reports, repair and claims data. Its downloadable monthly report was updated to 27 July 2026, earlier than this autumn announcement. It warns that customer enquiries are not a count of individual potholes: several reports can concern one defect, while one enquiry can describe more than one problem.
The monthly repair series also excludes work by Find and Fix teams and the Velocity jet-patching machine. Those definitions matter when comparing a table with a headline repair total. The new six-month figure should not be presented as a percentage improvement on a different series without first matching the dates and repair methods counted.
For residents, a more useful measure is what happens to the defect they report: whether it has been inspected, how it was assessed and whether a repair has been completed. Keep the location and report reference so a later enquiry can identify the same defect. The council’s published statistics do not, by themselves, identify a current backlog at a particular street.
How to report a pothole
West Sussex Highways’ reporting guidance says repairs are prioritised by risk. Its usual target for a pothole more than 100mm deep and 150mm wide is five working days; for one between 40mm and 100mm deep and at least 150mm wide, it is 28 days.
Smaller defects are usually reviewed at the next programmed inspection. These are the council’s stated response guidelines, so submitting a report does not automatically mean an immediate repair.
For a defect posing an immediate risk to public safety, call 01243 642105. The number transfers to an out-of-hours service outside normal opening hours. Potholes on the A23, A27 and M23 should be reported to National Highways instead.
Blocked gullies and road flooding
Horsham District Council’s drainage advice directs reports of road flooding and overflowing highway gullies to the county council. A blocked drain serving private property can have a different owner, so check the relevant reporting route rather than assuming every drainage problem belongs to highways.
