Almost half of ‘non-emergency’ potholes across Brent were not repaired on time last year, according to a council report.

A Brent Council cabinet document showed that, for 2018/19, just 51 per cent of ‘category two’ defects – those which should be repaired within seven to 28 days – were dealt with by the deadline.

This fell way short of the council’s target of 98 per cent, though it explained the figures were affected by a backlog of unrepaired potholes.

The report noted the contractor dealing with the borough’s roads, London Highways Alliance (LoHAC), which is partly managed by Transport for London (TfL), had “struggled to keep up with the workload”.

It added two other contractors were hired to “assist with reactive repairs” and help LoHAC “catch up”.

Despite the results, the council said the situation is now under control and it will continue to monitor the programme.

Cllr Shama Tatler, responsible for regeneration, highways and planning at Brent Council, said: “We’ve worked hard to clear the backlog, while ensuring we keep up with repairing the most serious defects on our roads, and we’ll closely monitor the situation going forward to ensure repairs remain on track.

“We’re also continuing to find new innovative ways to help ensure every residential road needing repair is visited quickly by our team, for example in using the new velocity injection patching repair method, which is enabling us to carry out more repairs within our existing budget.”

Nick Fairholme, TfL's director of project and programme delivery, said LoHAC was "not aware of specific contractor resourcing concerns" and that boroughs are welcome to procure services outside its framework.

In terms of ‘category one’ defects – ‘emergency’ potholes that should be fixed within 24 hours – it was virtually on target.

The report showed 97 per cent of defects were repaired on time, just one per cent shy of last year’s goal.

According to the council, targets were not met in May, June and July 2018, which brought the overall figure down.

In November, Cllr Tatler explained it had a clear structure in place to cope with the weather’s impact on the roads.

She said: “The day-to-day business of the highways department is to keep the highways safe.

“Through our reactive maintenance programme, we will inspect our highway network and repair defects – potholes, tree root intrusion, etc – considered to pose the greatest risk to the public.”

It conducted a targeted patching programme on A roads in November and December and a ‘find and fix’ policy from January until March.

According to the cabinet report, during this period, 100 per cent of ‘category one’ defects were dealt with on time.