Pothole hotline goes to pot

A 24-HOUR rapid-response pothole hotline crashed over the weekend.

The specialist repair team, launched last month and costing £60,000, was unable to log any calls.

Details of out-of-hours calls should be taken by the council’s First Response staff and passed on to the new unit. But residents trying to call over the weekend were left listening to a ring tone before being cut off.

One caller, who did not want to be named, said: “I called twice this weekend: once on Saturday evening and again on Sunday to report two potholes at the traffic light junction of Manchester Road and Edward Street. I thought there would be someone taking calls or at least an answering service, but I was left hanging on the phone for about two minutes before being cut off.”

Councillor Mark Alcock, cabinet member for environment and infrastructure, said the problem was related to maintenance work being carried out on the council’s IT systems.

He said: “These were all taken offline for a considerable time on Saturday afternoon to enable crucial preventative maintenance to be undertaken.

“As a result of that, however, we’ve now discovered that the phone which receives the pothole calls became disconnected from the rest of the network.

“Under normal circumstances, it would automatically have forwarded any out-of-hours calls through to our First Response team, who would then take details about the pothole from the public.

“We apologise for any inconvenience but I’d like to reassure residents that this fault will not recur.”

Anyone wishing to report a pothole can call the 24-hour hotline number on 0161-770 1685.