1.7 million potholes on UK roads

The Annual Local Authority Road Maintenance report has revealed there are over 1.7 million potholes littering the road network of England and Wales.

The study has also highlighted that there is an 11-year backlog of road repairs, sparking claims from campaign website potholes.co.uk that the Government’s “patch and mend” policy is not good enough.

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Duncan McCLure Fisher of Warranty Direct – the firm behind potholes.co.uk:

“It’s simply not acceptable for local authorities to patch-up roads that resemble the surface of the moon – they need to be resurfaced.

“Local and residential roads are regularly ignored. Councils need to be creative, enlisting local businesses and spending the money there is as wisely as possible, not wasting a penny on repairs which only last a matter of days sometimes.

“A lack of foresight is often to blame; if every council had at least a passable ‘pothole plan’ they’d be better prepared and all of us would be spending far less time and money fixing our cars.”

The organisation is now calling for councils to blanket-resurface torn roads and scrap policy that sees potholes repaired individually. Despite a mild winter, vehicles in the UK are still sustaining damage as a result of pockmarked road surfaces, costing on average £319 to repair.

Potholes.co.uk revealed last year that British motorists spent an average of £1 million per day in fixing pothole-induced car damage, generally sustained on smaller A and B roads.

A vehicle’s wheels, suspension and axles are the most likely culprits to be damaged by potholes, with badly-maintained roads also inducing sudden evasive manoeuvres by drivers to avoid incurring any damage, increasing the risk of a collision.

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