The cost of repairs to rid England and Wales of their pothole problems and bring the road network up to ‘ideal’ conditions has reached almost £17bn.
Pothole fury has come to the fore in recent years. Last year, figures from the AA found that pothole damage to vehicles had reached a five-year high.
When the Labour government came to power last year, it pledged to repair an additional one million potholes across England in each year of the next parliament.
At the end of last year, the government promised an extra £1.6bn investment that will be distributed to local councils, but a new report from the Asphalt Industry Alliance (AIA) has found that far more than this is needed to tackle road repairs.
The AIA’s annual local authority road maintenance (Alarm) report gathers information on local road conditions and funding in England and Wales by analysing responses from local authorities. This year saw a record 78% response rate from local authorities.
The Alarm report found that the scale of...