Pothole problems on Welsh roads are deeper than they look.
Wales based insurer Confued.com made a Freedom of Information request to leading councils in the area and came up with some road shocks.
a total of 20,378 potholes were reported to the region’s councils in 2016. Each local authority was asked for the minimum depth of a road defect to be considered a pothole, and this figure was aggregated against the total number to reveal a depth of almost 1km (775m).
The animation allows users to visualise the true depth of the region’s potholes combined, scrolling passed iconic recorded depths such as the bottom of the English Channel (174m) and the UK’s deepest cave in Powys (275m). Users can then scroll all the way passed the Mariana Trench (11km) and the world’s deepest man-made hole (12.3km) into the Earth’s upper mantle (30km) before arriving at the combined depth of the UK’s 1,033,486 potholes. This is over 40 km deep and 3.7 times the depth of the deepest part of the Pacific Ocean.
The animation also allows users to drill down to specific local authority areas, and Swansea comes out on top for having the deepest pothole problem of the region.
Having this many potholes can be a very costly job for councils, as they fork out for repairs, as well as compensation to victims of damage caused by the craters in the road. In fact, a third (33%) of motorists in the UK say their car has been damaged by a pothole.
In 2016, the region’s councils spent a whopping £6,181,917 repairing potholes.
They also spent a combined sum of £316,556 to compensate drivers for damage to cars caused by potholes.
Top 5 local authority areas within Wales with the deepest potholes
Local authority area | No. of potholes reported | Total depth | £ repairs | £ compensation |
Swansea | 3,020 | 151m | n/a | £834 |
Ceredigion | 3,152 | 126m | n/a | n/a |
Cardiff | 2,928 | 88m | £89,000 | £288,025 |
Conwy | 2,220 | 67m | £643,002 | n/a |
Pembrokeshire | 838 | 63m | £200,890 | £1,195 |