Table of Contents
The Chancellor announced £500m of additional funding to help fix Britain’s crumbling roads in yesterday’s Budget, but experts have dismissed the amount as “a drop in the ocean”.
Current estimates put the country’s pothole repair bill at a whopping £16 billion and potholes reportedly cost motorists around £500 million in vehicle repair bills last year.
Rachel Reeves said the potholes had become a “visible reminder of our failure to invest as a nation” and said the additional funding would allow one million craters to be repaired.
However, one motor industry expert said this “won’t have much of an impact on the state of UK roads”.
The Chancellor has announced £500m funding to help repair Britain’s crumbling roads, but experts have dismissed the amount as “a drop in the ocean”.
Mrs Reeves pledged an additional £500m to support local road repairs, a 50 per cent increase on the previous administration’s commitment and bringing total funding for England’s road repairs to £1.6bn. pounds.
While the Government has said this will “go beyond its commitment to fix an extra million potholes across England each year”, many industry players have criticized the commitment because the Government is “not taking the state seriously.” of the roads of England.
Speaking in the House of Commons yesterday, Rachel Reeves said: ‘For too long, potholes have been a visible reminder of our failure to invest as a nation. Today that changes.
“With a £500 million increase in road maintenance budgets next year, we more than meet our stated commitment to repair an extra million potholes each year.”
Paul Barker, editor of Auto Express, added that £500m will not “make a huge dent in the state of the UK’s roads”.
A drop in the ocean
Road safety organizations said the additional funding is “welcome” but argued it does not even scratch the surface in terms of the money needed to fix the £16bn pothole problem facing the country.
IAM RoadSmart policy and standards director Nicholas Lyes said: “Any additional funding to repair our deteriorating and potentially unsafe roads is welcome, but with a single repair bill of more than £16bn, the amount promised by the Chancellor is a drop in the ocean.” what is required.”
Bryn Brooker, head of road safety at dash cam maker Nextbase, agreed: “The new government has failed to take Britain’s deteriorating roads seriously. The £500m allocated for repairs will not be enough; experts They say we need £16.3 billion just to clear the current backlog.
Paul Barker, editor of Auto Express, added that £500m will not “make a huge dent in the state of the UK’s roads”.
A third of municipalities only fix potholes when they reach a certain depth, leaving roads dangerous for users and, especially, for cyclists.
What is a pothole? That’s a mystery: how city councils differ in their criteria for “potholes”
Potholes are one of the biggest problems facing drivers in this country, but several reports have found that there is a desperate need to improve efficiency in identifying and repairing craters to address the problem faster.
Local authorities take disconcertingly polarized approaches to classifying potholes, new research has revealed.
The RAC and Channel 4’s Dispatches program found that whether potholes are fixed or not depends entirely on the council’s own judgement.
What classifies a pothole as needing repair also varies greatly from region to region.
It was found that a third of councils only repair potholes when they reach a specific depth, regardless of their width.
The complete lack of cohesion in pothole repair means that dangerous potholes are not repaired and there is an ongoing risk to all road users.
An RAC investigation found different approaches by 206 councils to identifying and repairing potholes.
Of the 206 councils contacted by the RAC, only 76 (37 per cent) said they take a “risk-based approach” to deciding which potholes to fix and how quickly.
However, it is unknown what this risk-based approach entails, as none of the 76 authorities provided much information to explain their decision-making.
Incredibly, three in 10 city councils (29 percent) do not set any public criteria for repairing potholes.
Often, potholes are simply left to grow before elusive criteria deem them large enough to merit repair.
Among the 35 percent of city councils (71) who say they will only act on potholes if meet certain barometers: the most common depth indicated is 4 cm (according to 54 councils).
Your browser does not support iframes.
In January, This is Money reported that, in 2023, vehicle damage caused by pothole-riddled British roads will cost a staggering £474,000,000.
And in the first nine months of 2024, the AA attended almost half a million pothole-related breakdowns in the first nine months of 2024.
A report by trade body Asphalt Industry Alliance (AIA) published in March put the bill for pothole-related compensation claims at £15.2 million.
The AIA puts the average cost of filling a pothole at £72.26, up from £66.54 in 2023.
Labor’s calculations of pre-election figures put the average pothole repair cost for a driver at £250.
Some links in this article may be affiliate links. If you click on them, we may earn a small commission. That helps us fund This Is Money and keep it free to use. We do not write articles to promote products. We do not allow any commercial relationship to affect our editorial independence.
