The City of Edinburgh Council in Scotland, UK, has won the government’s 2009 Guardian Public Services Award for Frontline Engagement for major improvements in the city’s potholes problem.

The council’s pothole repair programme, called Right-First-Time, has brought down the time taken to fix a pothole from an average of 144 to 23 days.

The improvement has also halved the winter accident claims involving potholes.

The programme has been carried out by consultants Vanguard Scotland who emphasised the need for potholes to be shifted from temporary quick-fixes to permanent right-first-time repairs.