Auckland Transport Closed Your Pothole Report Without a Repair — What to Do Next

Auckland Transport closes 28% of pothole reports with no repair recorded and no reason given — that is from AT's own dispatch data. If your report was closed without a fix: re-report it quoting the original reference number, add a depth measurement and a new photo, and go to your local board member after a second closure.

Filing for the first time instead? Start with our guide to reporting a pothole in Auckland, which covers the AT website and app, the response targets and whose pothole it is. This page covers the harder problem: a report that went in and came back closed with nothing fixed.

What Auckland Transport's own numbers show

We obtained AT's full pothole dispatch log under LGOIMA: 26,863 records covering January 2024 to June 2026. Two findings matter when you are the person filing the report.

First, speed is not the problem. Once AT dispatches a crew, 96% of repairs land inside the target window. South Auckland runs a median response of 30 minutes.

Second, action is the problem. 28% of reports were closed with no repair recorded and no reason recorded. Roughly one report in four goes nowhere and the system does not tell you why. The road-by-road breakdown sits in our analysis of the 26,863 records.

Re-reporting: how to file one that survives triage

A vague report is easy to close. A specific one is not. Include these five things.

• Exact position. Street name plus the nearest house number, and which side or lane. A dropped GPS pin in the AT Mobile app beats a written description.

• A photo with scale. Put a shoe, a drink bottle or a ruler beside the hole. Depth is what moves a pothole up the priority list.

• Measured depth where you can take it safely. Anything over 50 mm in a trafficked lane sits in a different category from surface fretting.

• Consequence. Say if water is pooling in it, if it is on a bus route, if cyclists use that lane, or if a vehicle has already been damaged.

• The date and your reference number. Write the reference down. You need it if the report is closed without a repair.

Check whose pothole it is before you report it again

A closed-without-repair ticket sometimes means AT looked and decided the pothole is not on its network. AT maintains the public road and footpath only.

• On the sealed road between the kerbs, or on the footpath: Auckland Transport.

• Past your vehicle crossing, inside your boundary: yours.

• On a shared driveway, a right of way or a private road: the owners who use it, or the body corporate.

• In a commercial or apartment carpark: the building owner or the body corporate.

If the hole turns out to be on your side of the boundary, private pothole repair is a direct booking rather than a queue.

The escalation path when reports keep closing

This happens to roughly a quarter of reports, so treat it as routine rather than as a rejection of your case.

Re-report the same defect and quote the original reference number. State plainly that the earlier report was closed with no repair recorded. Add whatever is new: a deeper measurement, a second photo showing the hole has grown, a near miss.

If two reports close without action, raise it with your local board member. An elected member can ask AT for a reason against a specific reference number, which the public reporting form cannot do.

If the pothole damaged your car, that is a separate process from getting the hole fixed. The evidence required and the realistic odds are set out in our guide to claiming pothole damage from the council.

When waiting stops being the cheaper option

On a public road, waiting costs you nothing but time. Inside your own boundary it costs money. Water gets under the broken edge, a vehicle passes over the soft shoulder of the hole, and the edge breaks back again. A 300 mm hole in April is commonly a one-metre repair area by September.

For anything inside the boundary, send one photo and get a fixed price back within 24 hours, the work booked inside 48 hours, and a 12-month workmanship warranty. No site visit needed to price it.