Highways speaks to Mr Pothole (Mark Morrell) on his busiest day of the year, National Pothole Day, to find out more about media rounds, funding versus practice debates and rating the rater...how the Government ranks on potholes.

On National Pothole Day, Mr Pothole's alarm rings shortly after 5am. He has a long day ahead of him, including an appearance on GB News, followed by a round of BBC local radio station interviews, then the Jeremy Kyle Talk TV show and more BBC radio appearances in the afternoon.

'When the alarm goes off in the morning, I have some misgivings but you have to rise to the occasion. People say they are glad I am the only person speaking out about this, outside the industry. I am technically retired but I am still overseeing things. I don't want the Government to think I have gone away completely.'

If that media schedule wasn't enough, this week he has also spoken about road maintenance in the wake of the Government's rating of councils' performance (red, amber and green), across Sky News, GMB and Channel 5 among others. He says that he would love to have a debate with transport secretary, Heidi Alexander, 'but I don't think they want to engage with me'.

Funding and politics issues

Mr Pothole is not going quietly into retirement that is for sure. If anything he seems angrier than ever, and he knows how to make his case: 'I estimate that the driving public provide something in the region of £50bn to the UK chancellor's coffers. Yet central government are only providing around £1.6bn this year on local road maintenance and the asset is worth something like £600bn, so we should be spending at least £6bn a year - good economic practice dictates should spend around 1% of the assets value on its maintenance'.

Underfunding is not the only source of his ire - in some ways its more about what it represents. Mr Pothole can, legitimately, say he cares as much as anyone in the world about this issue. After all, he is not being paid for any this. And it's the sense that others just aren't putting in the shift that he is, that seems to annoy him most. 

'It's not about money, the Government can find the money, it's about commitment. Our road network is falling to pieces, people are being killed. It's costing us billions.'

In practice

Mr Pothole argues that about 80% of the problem is funding and the rest is the technical approach councils take - a key solution, though perhaps not the only one, to both of these problems is more oversight. He accepts that the Government has at least started to make a difference in this area: 'I think rating the councils is a great idea and the start of transparency. If you could get longer-term funding over 10 years, then we could audit where the money goes and suddenly that messages gets through and we drive different behaviours.'

This oversight and audit role should extend to the relationship between council members and officers, and between councils and contractors, Mr Pothole argues. Essentially, he says that councillors need to push for a return of the 'intelligent client', as it is known, and play a role in it themselves.

'Councillors need to be more informed and not rely on officers. The members need to question officers more. We also need more oversight of what the contractors do. When you get to the bottom line there is an element whereby people will try to get away with things: so KPIs need to be looked at in more depth.

'If you are relying on the contractor [to tell you the problems] then that could be a problem. You need someone looking over them questioning them as well. Good old supervision. Let the contractor get on with it but they need oversight. You have to give them good coaching and feedback and that includes telling people off. There are basic fundamental things that are done wrong sometimes.'

Out of 10?

Well, no one expected Mr Pothole to give the Government full marks but his response to the question on how much he rates the raters is perhaps a little harsh.

Mr Pothole puts them squarely in the red (Highways does not know whether the Government will appeal this): 'I give them four out 10 – they don't talk about the backlog. Greenwood knows the problems and has done excellent work, but I see a lot of lip service as well from this government. Rocking the boat doesn't seem to be on their agenda.'