How Britain’s plague of potholes became a budget black hole

When Prime Minister Rishi Sunak scrapped the second leg of HS2, he promised that the billions of pounds in savings would be redirected into new infrastructure projects.

In his speech at the Conservative Party Conference, he pledged to “reinvest every single penny, £36bn, in hundreds of new transport projects in the North and Midlands, across the country.”

It may sound like a revolution but it’s anything but. Much of this cash is simply being used to repair the infrastructure that we already have – namely Britain’s roads, which are falling apart.

As MPs call for tax cuts in this week’s Autumn Statement and Chancellor Jeremy Hunt scrambles to find ways to boost economic growth, the nation’s finances have become hostage to potholes.

Last week, the Government announced that nearly a quarter of the HS2 savings – a total of  £8.3bn – will be redirected into resurfacing local roads. It is the biggest cash uplift ever in funding for fixing potholes in local areas.

With good reason: the situation is urgent. Britain’s local roads are in the worst condition they have ever been in at least 28 years, according to the Annual Local Authority Road Maintenance Survey, aptly dubbed ALARM.

“Our roads are just declining in front of us,” says Rick Green, chairman of the Asphalt Industry Alliance (AIA), which runs the survey.

Potholes can be fatal, particularly for cyclists and motorcyclists. They also cause massive problems for motorists. This year is on track to be one of the worst years ever for pothole-related breakdowns, warns Jack Cousens, head of roads at the AA.

In the first nine months of 2023, potholes were blamed for nearly 460,000 callouts to the AA – nearly a fifth more than over the same period last year and up 8pc compared to the pre-pandemic figure in 2019.

Separate data from the RAC, which has its own pothole index, shows that the number of pothole-related breakdowns between July and September was the highest on record for this time of year since at least 2006.

The results are hugely disruptive and expensive. Each pothole-related breakdown costs a driver up to £440, according to the RAC. Bad roads disrupt deliveries and bin and recycling collections. Ad hoc repairs cost councils 50pc more than those that are scheduled.

While accident numbers are accelerating, repair work is in reverse. The number of potholes filled in over the last year dropped from 1.7m to 1.4m, according to the AIA.

As a result, 8,000 fewer miles of road were classed as structurally “good” compared to a year earlier.

A road should be resurfaced every 20 to 30 years, says Cousens. In Britain today, local roads are taking 116 years on average to be redone, the AIA says.

“If it happens on your street, you are never going to see that happen again in your lifetime,” says Cousens.

Britain has a different maintenance system for “strategic” roads, namely motorways and dual carriageways. The speed of traffic on these roads mean, broadly speaking, motorways are inspected once a month whereas residential streets are inspected once a year, says Cousens. Repairs of “strategic” roads are not dependent on local authority funds.

However, although these major roads carry the bulk of Britain’s traffic, they make up only a fraction of the national road network, says Green.

“When you think about it, every journey that everybody ever does will start and finish on a local road. Any time anyone goes to work or to school or to hospital.”

Local road conditions are a drain on political capital as well as actual funds.

“Potholes and the state of roads are the absolute totem of that feeling of a nation that can’t quite get its act together,” says Ben Shimshon, chief executive of Thinks Insights and Strategy. “When you ask people what they need to see to feel that things are getting better, often they will talk about the state of roads.”

The Government knows it. Successive Tory chancellors have scrambled to allocate cash to plug potholes. This started in 2015 with the Pothole Action Fund, a £296m allocation over six years.

The figures have quickly become eye-watering: in 2020, then-Chancellor Rishi Sunak allocated £2.5bn over five years, or £500m a year. In March this year, Hunt added a one-off £200m payment to this. Now, the allocated HS2 savings mean local authorities will receive around £800m a year for 11 years.

The problem began with funding cuts. Britain’s plague of potholes is because of years of underinvestment, says James Heath, chief executive of the National Infrastructure Commission.

“This money is about catching up,” he says. “It is clearly a long-standing problem that needs to be resolved.”

Massive spending cuts following the financial crisis meant central government grants to local authorities plummeted from £46.5bn in 2009/10 to £28.0bn by 2019/20 in today’s prices, according to the Institute for Government.

Local authorities offset part of this 40pc drop by doing things such as raising council tax, but the scale of the drop means spending power still fell by 17.5pc over the period.

Faced with a choice, many councils have prioritised schools and children’s social care spending over road maintenance.

“Roads don’t collapse dramatically, they just progressively get worse and worse, so it is easier to kick the can down the road a bit further when times are hard,” says the AIA’s Green.

But there is always a breaking point and our roads are becoming increasingly fragile.

“A lot of our motorways and roads were built in the 50s, 60s and 70s. They are ageing assets,” says Heath.

Increasingly extreme and variable weather conditions mean the strain on roads is also getting worse, he adds.

Potholes are created when there is an imperfection in the tarmac. Traffic puts stress on this imperfection, which creates cracks. When water gets into the cracks and freezes, it expands. The crack becomes a pothole.

More cold snaps means more freezing and more potholes.

Cousens says: “Certainly climate change does play a role in the long-term condition of our roads and how potholes are created throughout the year.”

Heatwaves also play a role.

“At a certain point, the tarmac starts to melt,” Cousens says. “That in itself starts creating the imperfections that become potholes further down the line.”

Road repairs have become a cash sink that even £8.3bn cannot quite fill. Local authorities in England and Wales face an annual funding shortfall of £1.3bn in their road maintenance budget, according to the AIA.

Despite Sunak’s efforts to fix our roads, the hole is only getting deeper.