Claims by an insurance company that roads ‘in the north’ are poorly maintained and littered with pot holes have been rebutted by Gateshead Council which holds the award for the best highways maintenance in Britain.

The report by a national insurance company which claimed that ‘colder weather’ or ‘just poor maintenance’ left roads in the North in a poorer condition has been dismissed by the award winning Gateshead Council which has an impressive record of dealing with pot holes and road damage.

Current holder of the Association for Public Sector Excellence award for highways and winter maintenance, Gateshead Council beat off stiff competition from over 300 councils up and down the full length of Britain to land the award.

Government indicators also place Gateshead Council amongst the top performing authorities in the country with 95 per cent of the network of core roads having no outstanding maintenance needs. 

On top of maintenance the inspection regime operated by Gateshead Council follows all national best practice and is held up as one of the key reasons that insurance claims for damage caused by roads have dropped from 419 claims in 2000 to 132 in 2008.

Gateshead Council head of construction services Lance Jobling said: “Whilst we’re not saying that our roads are perfect we feel that they are at least the equal of any other area in Britain regardless of geographical location.

“When pot holes are reported our average time taken to carry out a repair is six days and over the last twelve months we carried out over 18,500 repairs to roads in the borough using over 2,000 tonnes of tar macadam. 

“The length of time we take to rectify faults has been consistently falling in recent years and that has resulted in falling insurance claims too.”