Somerset County Council (SCC) is responsible for the maintenance and upkeep of highways throughout the county. It employs Highways Inspectors to identify defects which require maintenance or other attention. In order to speed the repair of defects within the parish boundary (and beyond, when villagers may be affected) the Parish Council (PC) sends a report monthly to SCC. The parish includes Hardington Mandeville, Hardington Moor and Hardington Marsh.

The majority of reports concern surface damage, potholes or blocked drains, but can include anything which impacts upon use of the highway. SCC responds to the PC’s report by sending an inspector to assess any reported defects. Defects are investigated, and action taken, according to a risk analysis of the likely impact of the defect and the probability of that impact occurring. The type of highway is also taken into account, and prioritised appropriately. Defects assessed by the PC as requiring more urgent attention than the monthly report are normally notified by email outside the monthly reporting cycle, and added to the following month’s report for the record.

The PC’s monthly report is assembled by its Highways Representative, but any member of the public who is aware of a defect can report it, either to the PC’s representative or, for more immediate attention, directly to SCC. Guidance on reporting is available on the SCC website. The guidance followed by SCC can be found here (caution - large document)

The report submitted by the PC appears on this website over a rolling 12 month period. Responses provided by SCC are annotated. The latest report is here

Contact details

If reporting to SCC by phone make a note of the incident reference number in case you want to follow it up.