Better Roads

Here you will find information on the work our Highways teams are doing across the county to provide a road network we can all be proud of and keep West Sussex moving.

Between 1 April and 30 September 2025, the council’s highways team have:

• Completed 164.6 miles of surfacing and large-scale patching
• Repaired 13,977 potholes using both ‘sawn and sealed’ patching and ‘spray injection’ patching methods
• Reduced the average time between receiving a report of a pothole and carrying out the repair to 12 days

You can find out more about how we repair potholes here.

This winter, we invested an extra £5million from our revenue budget to support a wide range of activities with a heavy focus on preparing for winter and improving the resilience of our highways network when faced with extremes of weather

What we have done on the network so far this year in preparation for winter:

• Fulfilled 8 large scale and 25 small scale capital drainage schemes
• Cleansed 45,793 drainage gullies
• Completed 250 drainage jetting jobs
• Carried out 491 iron work replacements and resets
• Cleansed 2114 roadside signs
• Trimmed or felled 1277 diseased or damaged trees
• Cut back vegetation that was restricting visibility at 108 sites

As we move into the winter months, we will continue to:

• Carry out jetting priority works including CCTV operations
• Complete proactive gully top and grip cutting works
• Respond to emergency situations that are causing disruption
• Work with our district and borough council partners who have responsibility for clearing the roadside gullies

It’s important to note that when we’ve had prolonged periods of heavy rain, the sheer volume of water means that no highway drainage can work effectively, as the outlet for highway water is over capacity and the water in our system simply can’t go anywhere.  This results in carriageway flooding and there is little we can do until water levels fall.

Unfortunately, roads are not permanent structures and deteriorate over time. The periods of extreme fluctuations in weather across the seasons that have been experienced in recent years has only served to accelerate the decline in the condition of our roads.

To get our entire network into perfect condition, we would need £400 million for the surfacing works alone. We’d also need to carry out a large amount of other structural and drainage works, especially on the rural roads which don’t have the same underlying infrastructure as roads in urban situations do.

The annual budget allocation for Highways isn’t only for pothole repairs and surfacing works, it also provides resources for the implementation and maintenance of:

• Footways and cycleways
• Bridges and subways
• Drainage assets such as gullies, ditches and grips
• Streetlights, traffic lights and pedestrian crossings
• Safety fencing, pedestrian barriers and bollards
• Road markings and signage
• Grass verges, trees, hedges and planted areas

The Highway and Transport Delivery Programme identifies highways infrastructure maintenance and transport improvement schemes.

It is funded from Highway Maintenance and Transport Improvement Grants, supported by other external contributions such as development section 106 funding (developer contributions) and West Sussex County Council's corporate capital funding.

The programme maintains our roads, footways and highway infrastructure elements, such as bridges and traffic signals, with this year’s programme being the largest we’re aiming to deliver in recent years, with a budget of £45million.

Full details of major infrastructure projects

How we spend the funding provided by Government for highways maintenance in West Sussex

All road users can help us to keep West Sussex moving by reporting problems to us using the links below. You can also help by:

• Keeping drainage gullies outside of your property clear of leaf debris on the gully tops if it is safe to do so.
• Making sure you adhere to your riparian duties by keeping any watercourse that runs through or immediately adjacent to your property free flowing. Read more about riparian responsibilities here

Useful links:

Report a pothole online

How to report an emergency with a road or pavement

Report flooding, blocked drains or gullies

Report any other issue eg damaged streetlights or parking issue