Council Tax and business rates phone lines

The telephone service for Council Tax and business rates will be unavailable on Tuesday 8 October. You can still contact us online to tell us of any changes in circumstances, make a payment arrangement or make a payment. Our telephone service will resume on Wednesday 9 October.

Roads - maintenance

We have a team of Safety Inspectors that check the roads and pavements for defects, such as dangerous potholes and potential trip hazards.

Every road and pavement that we maintain is inspected at least once every six months; the city centre is inspected once every two weeks. Our inspections follow the guidance document 'Well Maintained Highways - Code of practice for Highway Maintenance Management' (Published July 2005, by the Stationery Office). We actually inspect more frequently than this document suggests. This is because we have a very urban road network. The inspectors plan their walked inspection routes so they can inspect more roads in each inspection.

Some defects need to be fixed more urgently than others because they are a hazard to people using the road or pavement. We will make these safe within one hour of finding the problem.

Less urgent defects will be repaired within 10 weeks.

Reactive works - this usually means repairing potholes and fixing defects that are dangerous.

Planned maintenance - this work usually involves resurfacing the road or pavement.

Road maintenance is paid for out of the Council's main funds, with some additional funding for repairs coming from outside sources such as the Department for Transport. We have more information about these sources on the Roads - funding of maintenance page.