The council app that quietly became the only way to report a pothole

This is fictional sample content, created to demonstrate the layout. The places, people and figures in it are invented. It is not reporting.

Nobody decided to close the telephone route. It was reduced, then reduced again, and the hours were never restored after a reorganisation.

The app works well for people who have it. Reports are geotagged, photographed and tracked, and the resolution rate is better than it was.

The gap shows up in the ward-level figures. Two wards with the oldest populations generate a third of the reports per mile of road that the borough average would predict. Their roads are not newer.

The authority says a telephone route remains available and that no decision to withdraw it has been taken. It could not say what the staffed hours currently are.