There's little doubt the one subject I and my fellow councillors get the most complaints about, and that's potholes.

Earlier this year - due to the prudent budget management of my predecessor John Hart and our Cabinet finance member Phil Twiss - we were able to find an extra £10 million capital money to put into road repairs along with another £2 million from our revenue account.

I can imagine some people greeting that announcement with some cynicism and wondering if the situation on our roads would improve.

Now, I would be extremely foolish to suggest that we haven't still got a long way to go.

But our last full council meeting was presented with some very positive statistics on how the extra money has been used so far.

The headline figure for me was that there has been an increase of 51 per cent in the number of emergency potholes we have repaired in the first four months of this financial year compared to the same period in 2023.

And we've needed to up our game because the number of potholes being recorded was also up this past winter compared to the previous year.

Again, in the past four months, we've already completed 80 per cent of the patching repairs that we were able to achieve in the whole of the last financial year. 

Patching repairs target sections of road which are deteriorating. We lay patches over extensive areas before potholes or other defects form.

Since April we've patched more than 18,000 square metres of road in over 350 locations across the county. 

Extensive work is being carried out on all categories of roads right across the county and, while we won’t be able to get to every road in need of repair, we’re ensuring our extra investment goes as far as possible.

So these are pleasing results but there is still far more to do with a road maintenance backlog of around £200 million across our county.

This isn't a problem unique to Devon. The national backlog is some £16.3 billion.

Travel anywhere in the country and you will find people complaining about the state of the roads.

It's a growing issue because our weather is changing. We're getting wetter and wetter winters and the rain is becoming much more intense.

Couple that with occasional freezing conditions and an unprecedented number of violent storms and you have the worst possible combination for road surfaces.

The county council is responsible for around 8,000 miles of road and in lots of rural areas we have numerous roads that were originally just farm tracks and now have to cope with heavy tractors and farm equipment, delivery vans and modern cars - often four by fours.

But I pledged when I became leader that repairing potholes would be one of my top priorities and I hope these statistics prove that was not an empty promise.

As we start preparing our budget for 2025/26, I will be very conscious that we have to maintain and improve on the investment that we have already made. 

We've also got to work smarter and one of the ways we're doing that is by using a new surfacing material called Elastomac.

This is partly made of recycled road planings and recycled tyres. It not only reduces waste and carbon emissions but it's also quicker to cure than traditional material and means we can get your roads open again more quickly and reduce traffic disruption.

We’re also working with town and parish councils to share information and gather local intelligence so we can respond more effectively.