Drivers made 284 pothole damage claims against KCC in Sevenoaks district last year and 13 were paid, totalling £3,070. The 20 worst roads, named, from our FOI.
People made 284 claims against Kent County Council for damage caused by potholes and other road defects in the Sevenoaks district in 2025/26. Thirteen were settled, and the council paid out £3,070 in total.
That is the most claims in the three years covered by figures released to Sevenoaks Online by the county council, which maintains the district’s roads. Over the same period the number of potholes it filled in the district fell by 21%, and its spend on everyday road surface repairs fell by £223,699.
The council released the figures under the Environmental Information Regulations 2004. Its response, reference 67093306, is dated 19 October 2026 and covers the financial years 2023/24 to 2025/26.
Damage claims: one in 16 paid
Across the three years, 606 claims were made against the council over damage to vehicles or people caused by road defects in the district. Thirty-eight were settled, and the council paid £7,987 in all.
| Financial year | Claims made | Settled | Total paid |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2023/24 | 231 | 20 | £4,202 |
| 2024/25 | 91 | 5 | £715 |
| 2025/26 | 284 | 13 | £3,070 |
In 2025/26 that works out at one claim in 22 settled, and an average of £236 for each claim that was paid.
The 20 roads with the most reported defects
We asked for the 20 roads in the district with the most reported defects across the three years. Pilgrims Way in Kemsing tops the list with 61, followed by Main Road, Knockholt, with 58 and Penshurst Road, Leigh, with 55.
Five of the 20 are in Sevenoaks town: Granville Road, Cold Arbor Road, Seal Hollow Road, Hillingdon Avenue and Bayham Road. Two are in Fawkham and two in Chiddingstone parish.
| Rank | Road | Parish or town | Reports |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Pilgrims Way | Kemsing | 61 |
| 2 | Main Road | Knockholt | 58 |
| 3 | Penshurst Road | Leigh | 55 |
| 4 | Ash Road | Ash | 49 |
| 5 | Lingfield Road | Edenbridge | 44 |
| 6 | Valley Road | Fawkham | 43 |
| 7 | Granville Road | Sevenoaks | 41 |
| 8 | Underriver House Road | Underriver | 37 |
| 9 | Cold Arbor Road | Sevenoaks | 36 |
| 10 | Church Road | Sundridge | 36 |
| 11 | London Road | West Kingsdown | 35 |
| 12 | Seal Hollow Road | Sevenoaks | 34 |
| 13 | Three Gates Road | Fawkham | 34 |
| 14 | Chart Lane | Brasted | 33 |
| 15 | Hillingdon Avenue | Sevenoaks | 31 |
| 16 | Bayham Road | Sevenoaks | 31 |
| 17 | Moat Lane | Cowden | 31 |
| 18 | Hart Dyke Road | Swanley | 31 |
| 19 | Mill Lane | Chiddingstone | 30 |
| 20 | Tonbridge Road | Chiddingstone Causeway | 30 |
The council’s table counts “defect reports / jobs”, so the figures cover every kind of road defect logged on each road, not only potholes.
Reports up, repairs down
The council received 2,631 pothole reports from the public in the district in 2025/26, up from 2,297 the year before but below the 2,918 of 2023/24. It says these are “individual enquiries received specifically around pothole reporting”.
It filled 4,491 potholes in 2025/26, down from 5,284 in 2024/25 and 5,689 in 2023/24. The council says repairs outnumber reports “as many are picked up by routine inspections”.
Those totals are not every pothole mended. The council says they include “potholes filled as specific orders for a pothole or by officers on site”, but not patching works, which “will have repaired potholes within the patch”. It says the number of potholes fixed inside a patch “cannot be assumed”.
How long a repair takes
The typical wait barely moved over the three years. Half of repairs were done within six days of the order in 2023/24 and 2024/25, and within seven days in 2025/26.
| Financial year | Average days | Median days |
|---|---|---|
| 2023/24 | 15.2 | 6 |
| 2024/25 | 10.6 | 6 |
| 2025/26 | 11.8 | 7 |
The average is pulled up by the slowest jobs. The council counts from when “the order for the pothole repair is raised” to when the work is finished, so the figures do not include any time between a resident’s report and the order being raised.
What the council spent
Kent County Council spent £1,276,079 on carriageway maintenance in the district in 2025/26, against £1,140,628 in 2024/25 and £1,499,778 in 2023/24.
That figure “includes local maintenance only on the road surface”. It does not include capital work “such as resurfacing, surface treatments and the like”, so it is not the whole of the council’s spending on the district’s roads.
What the figures do and do not cover
- They cover roads Kent County Council maintains in the Sevenoaks district, as the highway authority there.
- Repair totals leave out potholes mended as part of larger patches, and the spend figure leaves out resurfacing.
- The claims figures cover claims for “vehicle or personal damage caused by road defects”, not potholes alone.
Reporting a pothole
Kent County Council takes pothole reports online through its report a highway fault page. Our earlier FOI story on fly-tipping reports in the district covers another of the most reported problems on local roads.
Sources
- Kent County Council, response under the Environmental Information Regulations 2004, reference 67093306, dated 19 October 2026, to a request from Sevenoaks Online received 21 September 2026 (pothole reports, repairs, days to repair, damage claims and carriageway maintenance spend in the Sevenoaks district, 2023/24 to 2025/26; the 20 roads with the most reported defects across the period).
Image: Pilgrims Way, Kemsing, by Chris Whippet, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Charts by Sevenoaks Online.
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