Bad weather is being blamed for an increase in potholes going unrepaired by the county council – as targets for fixing damaged roads are being missed by thousands.

Cllr David Brazier, the politician in charge of the county’s roads, says the increase in delays was partly attributable to icy conditions and heavy rain.

According to a monitoring report presented to county councillors yesterday the percentage of potholes repaired within 28 days has dropped below the target KCC sets itself.

Cllr Brazier said: “The number of potholes requiring repair rose steeply in quarter four, with over 5,000 repairs - an increase of 3,000 repairs compared to the previous quarter and more than twice the number compared to the same period last year.

“The high demand has been caused by very bad weather in January and March and a backlog of work caused by ice in December.

“Our contractor Amey continues to arrange additional resources to attend to the need for repairs to get us back to our target of 90%. Could we do this more quickly? Yes, if we had the funding – but we can only commission work if we have the funding.”

A report says that in the last three months of the financial year, the very wet weather saw the number of faults reported increase to more than 26,500, compared to 12,400 in the previous three months.

“This resulted in exceptionally high demand on the service and caused a drop in performance, with 85% of routine faults responded to in 28 days, below the 90% target,” it adds.

In March, Kent secured £6m from a new £200m government fund to help meet the costs of rising repairs.

The Met Office said England had endured the wettest March since 1981 this year.

February was one of the driest on record.