CHESHIRE East Council is no longer going to accept pothole reports from third party sites such as ‘FixMyStreet.’

Any resident wishing to report a pothole in their area must use the reporting tool on the Cheshire East Highways website.

A Cheshire East Council spokesperson said: “While ‘FixMyStreet’ may be helpful to some local highways authorities, Cheshire East Council would always urge residents to report highways issues directly via the ‘Report It – Track It’ digital tool on the council’s website.

“For our highway’s teams, this avoids the need to refer to a third-party source and avoids duplication of work.

“Cheshire East Highways’ ‘Report it – Track It’ process is a far more effective and efficient way of informing the council of any problems.”

Jonathan Parry, Middlewich Town Councillor, believes that the Cheshire East reporting tool is far less user friendly than ‘FixMyStreet’.

Jonathan said: “You can take a picture on your phone, open the app and it knows exactly where you are and you can report it as easy as that.

“We have shown many people how to do it and it only takes a matter of minutes.

“All of the information on there is accessible to the public as well. You can see whether a pothole has been reported or not and the status of the repair work.”

Jonathan does not agree with the council’s reasons for not using the service.

Jonathan added: “Cheshire East are now part of the two per cent of councils that do not use this service.

“The reason the other 98 per cent use it is because it is so user friendly when it comes to reporting potholes.

“Come election time they will be saying that a large proportion of pothole reports have been dealt with but they will be false figures.

“It can take up to fifteen minutes to report a pothole on their site and some people will have given up by then.”

To report a highways issue in Cheshire East please visit the website cheshireeasthighways.org/report-it-general.aspx.