Fix potholes or lose extra cash, Prime Minister tells England's councils

Councils in England are being told to count, repair and report their potholes properly, and if they don't, they'll forfeit their share of a £500m bonus investment pot. Holey-moley.

The new ultimatum implemented by the Prime Minister says that each council needs to spend its slice of the £1.6bn budget set aside last year for road maintenance pronto, and that annual reports must reflect 'public confidence in the work done', too.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer said: “The broken roads we inherited are not only risking lives but also cost working families, drivers and businesses hundreds - if not thousands - of pounds in avoidable vehicle repairs. Fixing the basic infrastructure this country relies on is central to delivering national renewal, improving living standards and securing Britain’s future.

“Not only are we investing an additional £4.8 billion to deliver vital road schemes and maintain major roads across the country to get Britain moving, next month we start handing councils a record £1.6 billion to repair roads and fill millions of potholes across the country."

Whether that will spell the end of magically reappearing road craters is anyone's guess. But the 'pothole plague' is so extensive, the RAC's created a 'Pothole Index'. It says that potholes cost drivers on average £460, with each driver experiencing at least six potholes a day.

The widespread problem has been costing councils in other ways too, forcing them to spend a fair wedge of cash responding to pothole compensation claims. In a freedom of information (FOI) request last year, the RAC learned that there are over 20,000 claims a year from drivers seeking compensation after car damage from neglected roads.

Cambridgeshire County Council reckons that additional fund doesn't really touch the sides, claiming that it has a £410m shortfall to fix the county's roads. Even by our questionable maths, that number extrapolated to cover all counties would total, erm, a lot more. In fact, the Asphalt Industry Alliance calculates almost £17bn would be needed to get all the roads of England and Wales adequately repaired, or renewed before they wear out.

Secretary of state for transport Heidi Alexander said: “After decades of under-investment, it’ll take time to restore the state of the nation’s roads.”

Cllr Adam Hug, transport spokesperson for the Local Government Association, said: "It’s in everyone’s interests to ensure that public money is well spent. This includes the Government playing its full part by using the Spending Review to ensure that councils receive sufficient, long-term funding certainty, so they can focus their efforts on much more cost-effective, preventative measures rather than reactively fixing potholes, which is more expensive.”

Indeed, if we're talking durability, councils might consider that graphene-laced asphalt being trialled in Middlesborough.

Curiously, no one really knows how widespread the pothole issue is right now. Figures from 2023 put the holey-road count at 556,658, but since only 81 out of 185 county and district councils provided a response at that time, the real number is likely up to three times higher.

More as we get it. Meanwhile, check out our collection of the best off-roaders to buy until the roads are fixed.