Wiltshire Council highways engineers have identified 1,312 potholes across the county caused by the harsh weather before Christmas.

The tally was carried out by engineers on their normal inspections of county roads and those reported to parish stewards.

During January the weekly number of potholes reported reached a peak of 379 but this figure pales into insignificance compared with last year. At the beginning of 2010, highway crews were filling between 400 and 500 holes a day.

Graeme Hay, Wiltshire Council’s highways engineer, said: “We spent a lot of the summer resurfacing the county’s roads so they were in a much better condition to cope with this winter’s weather.”