The county council has paid out more than £68,400 in compensation to motorists whose cars were damaged by potholes in just eight months.

Street Repairs, which developed an app to enable members of the public to report information about potholes and road maintenance problems, has chosen January 15 as a designated day every year to raise awareness of the pothole problem in Britain.

The extent of problems in Hertfordshire has emerged after a report by one of the country’s biggest insurers.

Out of the 143 Freedom of Information responses received, Hertfordshire was ranked the fifth highest.

LV = Road Rescue discovered there were 1,346 compensation claims lodged with Hertfordshire County Council this year and £68,462 was awarded to claimants from January to August.

The authority has defended the spending, with its highways chief citing the size of the road network as the main reason for the high figure.

In a separate FOI request by the St Albans Review, the Borehamwood Times's sister paper, it was revealed that over the last three years, £25,239.71 was paid out to motorists in Hertsmere.

Councillor Terry Douris said: “These comparisons between local authorities do not take into account either traffic levels or the size of the road networks.

“Hertfordshire is the busiest county in the country and our roads are under incredible pressure – we have a network of more than 5,000km (approx 3,000 miles) and very high traffic levels, with millions of car journeys and 2.5 times the national average of lorries using our roads.

“This means that our roads are more expensive to maintain and wear out quicker.

“Combined with the recent harsh winters, this inevitably resulted in an increase in the number of potholes, and therefore compensation claims. This is not unique to Hertfordshire – potholes are a countrywide problem due to a sustained period of national under-funding in road maintenance.”

Councillor Douris added: “We are continuing to invest heavily in our roads and spend millions every year on pothole repairs – in 2013/14 alone, we repaired more than 31,000 potholes.

“We successfully bid to the Government this year for an extra £2.2 million to repair damage caused by the flooding to boost these efforts. In Hertfordshire we have long championed a proactive approach to maintaining our roads that focuses on prevention rather than cure.”

It is estimated that a third of roads are in urgent need of attention, and Department of Transport statistics show that since 2010 an additional 2,262 miles of local roads require maintenance work – further than going from Land’s End to John O’Groats and back again.

To report a pothole contact Ringway, the county council’s contactor, on 0300 123 4047.