The pothole problems plaguing Buckinghamshire’s roads will only get worse, it has been warned - after it was revealed the council has received thousands of complaints about the state of the county's roads in just one month.

Sub-zero temperatures and a high number of gritting runs this winter have led to the rapid decay of the county's roads, with an estimated 3,600 reports of potholes received in the last six weeks for the Chiltern and South Bucks area alone, according to Transport for Bucks.

And councillors were warned the road quality will decline before it gets better at a meeting of The Chilterns Local Area Forum on Wednesday, with permanent repairs not expected to be considered until April.

Customer and compliance officer at TfB, Rosie Taylor, stressed teams are working on the "pothole situation" as fast as possible, however they can only carry out temporary repairs until the weather improves.

She said: "We are carrying out a huge amount of temporary repairs on roads, because simply there is water lying on the roads, there is salt lying on the roads.

"People think we are doing a poor quality job but he simple fact is we cannot do permanent repairs, they will come out. We have a long list of permanent repairs, and this is an ideal opportunity to inform the public on why we carry out temporary repairs the way we do at this time of year."

Ms Taylor added "this is the worst winter we have had", and a total of 62 gritting runs have been carried out to date - which are thought to have contributed to the deterioration of the roads.

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And at the beginning of the month a study by cycling charity , We Are Cycling UK, revealed Bucks is the 7th worst pothole repairer in the country.

Leader of Bucks County Council and member for Little Chalfont and Amersham Common, Martin Tett, proposed at a full meeting of BCC on Thursday that a "significant" amount of money should be taken out of council reserves and be invested in to road repair.

Speaking at the LAF, he said: "It has been one of the worst winters in terms of the decay of roads. We were making very good progress on restoring the roads and this winter has knocked it back considerably. It is not the snow. It is actually the incessant rain and the freezing of that water on cold nights. 

"I must have to say the gritting run doesn't help because the salt makes the road decay as well, so 61 runs is great but makes it worse in terms of the long term viability of the roads. 

"There is no easy answer to this - I am getting deluged with complaints. The best thing to do is wait until the spring, even though we are going to take a lot of complaints between now and spring."

Cllr Tett added a "holistic" approach will need to be taken towards repairs, tackling large areas at a time.