SOUTHAMPTON has the fourth highest amount of online pothole complaints in the country, new research has shown.

Data collected by car trader website, theclunkerjunker.com, found that the city's residents made the fourth most complaints about potholes in the country online.

The data which ranged from August this year to September showed that on average, Southampton sees 406.7 yearly complaints on Twitter.

The city with the highest amount of yearly complaints was Edinburgh with 570.3 whilst Wakefield came in as the one with least with just 5.4 on average each year.

This comes as Southampton City Council has launched its new multi-million pound road maintenance programme which is expected to see over 150 roads and pavements across the city be resurfaced or patched up.

Speaking on the data, Cabinet member for growth and deputy leader of the council, Cllr Jeremy Moulton said: "I would hope fairly soon we have the lowest number of complaints in the country. We have tripled our reactive repairs budget with the introduction of the new Pothole Patrol service.

"They are out every day filling potholes and repairing broken kerbstones. They are currently fixing about 400 defects a month and laying 50t of tarmac each month."

When asked what the council would be doing to maintain the quality of road surfaces, the council replied with information about its new Pothole Patrol scheme which will see teams cover the East, West and North/Centre of the city focussing on undertaking works to footpaths and carriageways as well as kerbing, slabs and blockwork repairs.

Concerns had recently been raised by members of the opposition in Southampton that the city council was investing money into private roads and not focussing on repairing roads belonging to the authority.

This came as the council agreed to invest £250k in repairing the unadopted Lordswood Close in Bassett.