Chancellor’s £5bn fund not enough to tackle pothole crisis

Drivers will need to prepare for more pothole misery this winter as it has been revealed that the £5 billion local roads maintenance fund announced by Chancellor Rishi Sunak this week still isn’t sufficient. 

Announcing the fund in the Autumn Budget 2021, Sunak said that it was “enough to fill one million more potholes a year”. 

However, it is up to each local highway authority to decide how much of their allocation to use on potholes and the funds could also be used for repairing bridges, resurfacing roads or other necessary maintenance. 

The £5bn fund is for the period 2020 to 2025 and therefore includes the £500 million pothole fund announced in the 2020 Budget. 

Both the Local Government Association (LGA) and Asphalt Industry Alliance (AIA) welcomed the £5bn fund but said it isn’t sufficient to bring the country’s roads up to scratch and prevent further issues. 

An LGA spokesperson said: “Any funding that allows local authorities to fix more potholes and improve roads for the drivers, cyclists and pedestrians in their communities is a positive thing.

“However, the £400 million reduction the LGA has previously highlighted in roads maintenance budgets has not been filled in the Spending Review.

“The ability of councils to improve local transport connectivity and infrastructure, including upgrades to local bus, road and cycle infrastructure, is critical to government ambitions to level up the country and support our long-term economic recovery from the pandemic.”

The AIA suggests an even bigger shortfall. 

Its Annual Local Authority Road Maintenance (ALARM) 2021 survey reported the backlog of repairs is now more than £10 billion and chair Rick Green suggested “at least” an additional £1.5 billion per year from central Government sources on 2021 levels is needed to tackle the backlog of repairs prevent further decline. 

Research from online car marketplace heycar earlier this year showed a huge difference in the average cost of repairing a pothole, with one council typically spending just £27, up to a whopping £232.

The research also found councils in England forked out more than £8 million of taxpayers’ funds last year to settle damage claims caused by potholes, with the biggest single claim resulted in a payout of almost a quarter of a million pounds.