It could cost almost £17 billion to sort out the ‘pothole plague’ bursting tyres and battering suspension across the road network in England and Wales.
Damage levels are reaching crisis point, with the the Asphalt Industry Alliance (AIA) reporting one in six miles of road could crumble away within five years.
Nearly two-thirds of people who answered a survey from the AIA said the quality of roads in their area has declined in the past year.
This winter, one community in north Wales even set up a makeshift theme park called Pothole Land to showcase ‘two kilometres of potholes with very little actual road to spoil your fun’.
But aside from the record high estimated price tag of £16.8 billion to get the countries’ roads in a decent condition, there could also be a hefty wait: the AIA’s report suggested the job could take 12 years.
Even with those resources, though, a major rethink of approach may be needed before drivers notice an impact.
AIA chair David Giles pointed out more than £20 billion has been spent on carriageway maintenance in England and Wales over the last decade – but without any ‘quantifiable uplift’ in the quality of the network.
He said: ‘Almost all – 94% – of local authority highway teams reported that, in their opinion, there has been no improvement to their local network over the last year.’
At the moment, roads are only resurfaced once every 93 years on average.
AA president Edmund King warned: ‘The UK is nowhere close to getting out of this rut.’
He said the country’s ‘pothole plague’ was being tackled with a ‘dismal two steps forward, three steps back’ approach.
In October, a monster pothole on the M25 took out almost 60 cars and left drivers sitting helplessly on the hard shoulder in the pouring rain for hours.
And residents of Whitebarns Lane in the Hertfordshire village of Furneux Pelham were told last year they would have to pay £100,000 if they wanted the short street’s 32 potholes repaired.
The government has assigned £1.6 billion of funding for local roads maintenance in the 2025-26 financial year, a boost of £500 million compared to the previous 12 months.
Adam Hug, transport spokesman for the Local Government Association, said: ‘The funding increase in the last Budget was positive and must now be followed by a commitment in the spending review to a long-term financial package to tackle this backlog and put it into reverse.’
A Department for Transport spokesperson said: ‘For too long, this country has suffered from a pothole plague, which is why we’re investing £1.6 billion to help local authorities resurface local roads and fix the equivalent of up to seven million extra potholes over the next financial year.
‘We want to achieve this in the most cost-efficient way for the taxpayer by providing local authorities with multi-year funding settlements, enabling them to better maintain their road networks and avoid potholes being formed in the first place.’
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