Back-to-back La Nina events and flooding natural disasters in both March 2021 and 2022 have created headaches for local governments across the region.

Councils have recorded a surge in potholes reports, requiring a significant additional spend to repair the damage.

The inclement weather has also hampered opportunities for road crews to get out and fix the damage.

Port Stephens Council said it has had an estimated 5000 potholes to repair across the local government area at any one time following the severe weather and rain.

"During a week of no rain, we're able to repair and get back down to 1,000 open [potholes] at any time, but as it rains again it quickly jumps back up to 5,000," a spokesperson for the council said.

This is a huge increase from drier conditions last year, when the council says it had about 50 open potholes at a time.

In Newcastle, the council has experienced a 161 per cent increase in customer reports of potholes across the road network this year when compared with the corresponding period two years ago.

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The effect of La Nina is mostly to blame, City of Newcastle says, which has sped up the deterioration of some road pavements, and resulted in "significant delays to programmed maintenance works as we redirect our resources to accommodate for the reactive needs of the road network".

"Many of these potholes require a more extensive repair due to the extent of the pavement damage, however temporary make-safe repairs will continue to be actioned as quickly as possible, with permanent repairs to follow as resources allow," a council spokesperson said.

Dungog council has already overspent its annual sealed roads budget and allocated hundreds of thousands of dollars more to fix the ongoing problem.

By the end of April, the council had spent 122 per cent of its annual rural sealed roads budget.

It also allocated an additional $250,000 for roads maintenance in its most recent quarterly budget review to "advance the delivery of priority road maintenance".

"This work and funding is outside of the financial assistance provided by the NSW government, to assist councils in restoring essential public assets that were damaged as a direct result of the declared natural disaster in March 2022," a Dungog council spokesperson said.

Cessnock council has had more road maintenance requests so far in 2022 than it did for the entire 2020 calendar year. Requests have also increased by 862 on the same period last year.

There have been 2390 requests in 2022 already, including 715 in March alone. This compares to 2347 in all of 2020.

The council will up its road maintenance spend by 14.3 per cent to $5.8 million next financial year to help address the problem.

"We understand the community's frustration with potholes that keep appearing across our road network due to the rain," Cessnock City Council's acting general manager Robert Maginnity said.

"Following the storm event in March, our crews worked tirelessly to assess the impact, and repair damages to ensure the safety of our road network for residents.

"With the road network heavily impacted, our crews had to prioritise urgent repairs, and this, coupled with relentless rain after the event, has caused a significant backlog when it comes to addressing maintenance requests."

Lake Macquarie council is delaying lower priority maintenance jobs to prioritise road repairs.

The area has received almost a year's worth of rainfall already in 2022, with 1046.6mm having fallen in Cooranbong between January and May compared to the long term average of 1079.3mm.

The council reported a spike in road requests to 1600 from January to May this year - up from 1204 in the same period last year. The busiest months have been March and May.

"The overall budget has not changed, as costs are drawn from a larger pool of maintenance funding," Lake Macquarie City Council manager assets management Helen Plummer said.

"It does, however, mean other lower priority maintenance jobs will experience some delays, with resources channelled into road repairs."

Ms Plummer said the high number of requests had also extended the wait time for some of these jobs to be completed.

"We require dry weather conditions to be able to effectively complete repairs, which can impact on time frames," she said.

"However, we have allocated extra crews to help minimise the backlog and maintain the standard of our roads. These works are prioritised based on risk to public safety."

In Maitland, more than half of the council's road repair requests this year have been recorded in March and April.

Maitland council has received 1131 reports via online Report It tool, which combines pothole, kerb or gutter and road repair requests into one amount. There were 315 requests in March and 341 in April.

This is up from 785 between January and May last year.

Singleton council has experienced a 61 per cent rise in both road-related customer requests and phone calls regarding road maintenance issues from November to May compared to the same period the year before.

The area experienced three natural disaster flooding events in 12 months - March 2021, November 2021 and March 2022. Singleton council's manager infrastructure services Damian Morris said phone calls regarding road maintenance during the March 2022 flood emergency increased by 167 per cent compared to March 2021.

"Council officers are still compiling data relating to this natural disaster, including the cost of this emergency event to our road network," Mr Morris said.

"Like most regional councils, we have a very large road network that places significant pressure on our available resources. This in turn impacts our ability to respond during sustained wet weather periods like the one we are experiencing at the moment."

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