Potholes, blocked drains and faulty street lights can now be easily reported online as part of a drive to bring the county’s roads up to scratch.

The county council has launched a new online service for reporting highways faults which it hopes will streamline the process of fixing them.

The authority receives hundreds of queries every month about faults, but it hopes the public can now act as its eyes by reporting faults using its website - including attaching pictures.

Nearly 17,000 faults on the highway were reported by members of the public to the authority in 2016/17.

It will be investing £80m in highways maintenance in 2017/18.

Keith Little, the county council’s cabinet member for highways, hopes the new service will help the authority deal with faults more efficiently and effectively.

He said: “We’ve got such a large road network, we are the fifth largest highways authority in the country.

“We obviously can’t be everywhere on the roads all the time and these potholes appear overnight or over a couple of days.

“We rely on the public to be our eyes and this new system will allow them to easily contact Cumbria County Council for us to act more efficiently and effectively.

“This is a drive to make the council more efficient because the sooner we know about something the sooner we can get a repair in there.

“We’ve been working on the system now for more than 18 months and it’s a specific system designed for us.”

He continued: “I’m absolutely delighted we are launching a new online service. I believe it will improve efficiency and make a big difference to the way we manage and respond to highways faults.”

People can search for the postcode or street where the fault is, then pinpoint its exact location to help council workers identify and fix it.

By providing an email address, people reporting faults can now receive automatic updates on how work is progressing and when the fault has been dealt with.

A map is also available to show previously reported faults, their current status and allow people to register for updates on those faults.

The new online service instantly notifies a highways area steward when a fault is reported, allowing them to allocate it to one of the council’s highways teams.

The repair teams have also been issued with new tablets to allow them to receive information in real time rather than needing to return to a depot for instructions.

These new ‘tough’ tablets have been tested in remote areas of Cumbria, to ensure information can be recorded and updates issued as soon as the team enter an area with either a mobile or wifi connection.

Faults will be assessed, made safe and where possible repaired temporarily or permanently.

To report highways faults online, visit www.cumbria.gov.uk

The council’s highways hotline will continue to be available to report faults by phone on 0300 303 2992.