Introduction
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 March 2026, the council’s highways team:
- Repaired 24,871 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.
You can read more about our recent work tackling the increase in potholes here.
Our challenge
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
What we're investing
We are committed to actively tackling the problem of our deteriorating roads.
This year the council will invest £60.7 million in maintaining and improving highways in West Sussex over the coming year. More than 70% of the budget is for work designed to limit the number of potholes forming in the first place, such as re-surfacing, large-scale patching and drainage improvements.
Over the next 12 months, our highways capital delivery programme will spend £40 million of this money delivering over 230 schemes across the county. Of these projects, 130 will involve carriageway patching and resurfacing, with funding allocated to repairing damage caused by the recent flooding.
At the same time, £20.7 million of revenue funding will be spent on ongoing maintenance, including repairing potholes, small-scale carriageway patching, drainage maintenance, vegetation management and winter gritting.
Read more about what we're investing in our highways network here
Highways infrastructure
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.
How you can help
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 flooding, blocked drains or gullies
Report any other issue eg damaged streetlights or parking issue