by political editor Paul Francis

The number of potholes blighting Kent roads has been blamed for a huge increase in formal complaints to the county council.

KCC says it dealt with 1,959 complaints to its highways department in 2010-2011 - a staggering 56% increase on the previous year.

The rise in complaints comes despite a concerted drive by the authority to tackle tens of thousnds of potholes created by the prolonged spell of bad weather over the last two winters.

A 'find and fix' campaign led to 31,000 potholes being filled and repaired over the year at a cost of several million pounds.

Despite this, more than half of complaints were about the poor state of roads and the quality of repairs. There were also several hundred complaints about poor communication and insurance claims.

According to a report due to be presented to county councillors today, there were 631 more complaints to the council's highways department than last year.

Of those, 1,066 were made between April and September - with the bulk related to potholes left unrepaired or poor quality repairs.

In December alone - when the bad weather was most serious - 269 complaints were made about the lack of action over icy roads and snow clearance.

However, KCC says overall the number of complaints represented less than 1% of the 291,953 calls made to its contact centre - with 13,210 being about potholes and 1,994 about the winter weather.

And there was an increase in compliments made to the highways department, with nearly 600 being made by members of the public - 25% up on the previous year.

Cllr Bryan Sweetland (Con) KCC cabinet member for highways, said the bad weather over the last two years was unprecedented. "We have probably had the worst two winters in the last two years and that did have an impact."

He said the authority had seen a change in culture that meant improvements would come: "The organisation we now have is not the same as the one we had last year.

"I hope next year will be a lot better, but it does depend on the weather and I hope we get a lot more compliments. It is a useful report and we have been transparent by publishing it warts and all."

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